


Her Songs Are Wild

by waitingforthehogwartsletter



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Family Problems, Friendship, M/M, Romance, Sexual Content, Sibling Love, Slow Burn, alcohol/cigarettes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-06
Updated: 2014-07-08
Packaged: 2018-02-07 18:33:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 40,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1909386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waitingforthehogwartsletter/pseuds/waitingforthehogwartsletter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arya Stark grew up on music, on Mozart, Beethoven and her father’s own music. She is as forced into the classical music as much as she loved the alternative when her half-brother Jon first played it for her. As such, she grows to breathe music more than air itself, and soon is met with other versions of musicians, and a very, very mysterious and talented one named Gendry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Soft Melody Of Her Family

**Author's Note:**

> I will never be able to keep up with restrictions, as in publishing every week or so. I've tried, by the Gods, i've tried, but I am all too unorganized to keep up with that. I might update a chapter a day after the previous, or a month. During the summer, it should be more often, since I do play on studying during the school year. But I promise not to abandon any fanfics.
> 
> Also published on fanfiction.net under the same username (waitingforthehogwartsletter).

**_Arya is 16, Jon, Robb and Gendry are 19, Sansa is almost 18, Bran is 13 and Rickon is 10. Jon is Ned’s first child, born a few months before Robb, as Catelyn was already pregnant when they married. Whole family is into classical music, but Ned stopped his musical carrier (in which he mostly worked together with Robert Baratheon) years before and now is a manager. Baratheons own a complexion of buildings called the King’s Landing, although previously it was a Targaeryen property. It was taken over by illegal means, but I’m still not sure whether this fanfiction would be as long to bother with those problems. It’s mostly about Arya, her life, her story and… her Gendry_**.

 

_If love was red then she was colour blind._

**NED**

Eddard Stark woke up at the sounds of impatient strumming of guitar chords. He sighed, with his moves still dull with sleep, before rolling onto his back and glancing at his wife by his side. Catelyn slept peacefully, and he thought these days it was the only time she looked peaceful. Sighing once again, he slowly sat up, putting his feet on the cold wooden floor as his skin prickled and cowered. The cold he loved so dearly helped removing the shadows from his mind and vision, and he stood up and went to the bathroom, still thinking of the melody coming through the walls.

It wasn’t odd the way the music woke him up but not his wife, too; every morning one or more of his children would without exception pick their instruments up and start playing. Ned wasn’t as used to this as Catelyn was – his ‘new’ profession not quite rarely had him traveling on months long trips to wherever it was needed. He would not complain, though: he was more than proud to sense his loved children’s eagerness and affection towards music.

This morning, it was two of them. His oldest, Jon, sat by the window in Arya’s (Ned’s  fourth and Catelyn’s third child) room with her sitting on the window sill, repeating her half-brother’s chords with trembling, insecure fingers. When they noticed their father, though, both stopped playing, and Jon looked up at him warmly and Arya a little scared.

“Good morning, father.” Jon rumbled in his deep voice. He smiled. “Have you slept well?”

“Yes, well it was, not quite long, though.” Ned glanced at the sky behind Arya’s back. It was barely past sunrise. “When have you started with the guitar, Arya?”

Arya quickly glanced at Jon, who gave her an amused nod, and she averted her eyes back to her father’s calm face. “I’ve been practicing a bit for a year. Never could find much time, though, since Jon’s tutoring me and he’s busy, too.”

“Why haven’t I known this before?” Ned asked. He was surprised by the news, although not very shocked; Arya was always of unexpected, various actions. He supposed her and Jon were quite alike, although Arya had a spark and anger in her a lot more. She always blamed something on someone, more often than not, herself.

“Dad, you’ve been away for almost 8 months. How could you have known?” Arya frowned.

Ned sighed – it was Arya’s constant companion, the sharp honesty with no holding back. He leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms on his chest. “You could’ve said – it’s not like I haven’t called a lot or came back whenever I had a few days.”

Arya shrugged. Jon answered instead of her. “You’ve been busy, dad. We all have. When you were here, there were always more important things to talk about.”

“I would’ve found a moment for this.” Ned defended himself. He didn’t know if that was quite true: his irregular visits were heavily burdened with celebrations and visits from the rest of his family.

“Of course you would.” Jon said. Arya huffed.

“Still, it’s not like I’m pro or something; as I’ve said, I haven’t practiced a lot. Haven’t even tried playing anything harder than Jingle bells.”

“I doubt you’ve really played Jingle Bells, dear.” Ned said as John laughed at his sister’s words.

Arya smiled almost shyly (but Arya was never really shy) and Jon said “Her first was Smoke on the Water, and it took her only three minutes to take down the chorus.”

Arya smacked him on the head, holding the guitar close to her heart with the other hand. “It took me two, dumb!”

Ned laughed but still pointed one finger at her accusingly “Don’t call your brother dumb.”

“Okay, than fool.”

“ _Arya_!”

“Oh, just let her be father, better to take it out on me than other innocent humans.” Jon was still laughing.

Arya snarled and muttered angrily. “You’re more innocent than the lot of them, Jon Snow.”

“Right, because I’m so cute and lovely darling.”

“Dammit Jon, once in a year I say something nice and you can’t take it properly!”

“If that was nice, I’m a ferret. On the other hand, as nice as it is, I doubt it’s something of a yearly event. More like – every five years, sister dear.”

Ned stood at the door, listening to his children’s bickering for a while, not uttering a word. He smiled at them, his eyes softly grazing their sharp, cold features. Out of the lot, only Arya and Jon looked like him. Both with dark grey eyes and almost black curls. Arya was skinny and short, even for her young age of 16. Jon was shorter than his younger brother Robb, but looked older, a dark scruff visible over his jaw, his eyes older and his built bulkier. Jon’s hair reached almost to his shoulders, as messy as ever, and Arya’s, just a shade lighter than his, was only long enough to curl softly on the nape of her neck. She preferred the simpler, more practical look, and it was something both Catelyn and their older daughter Sansa like to scowl at. Ned was, secretly, proud of that. He never once joined the sharp words when they happened, but only smiled fondly at Arya, who in those moments stared at him or the walls. Never once would she look down at the floor, never once would she seem small, she would always keep her ground no matter how the words made her feel. Ned hoped one day she would come to him, spilling her thoughts and insecurities, and although Ned was never out in the open with his own flawed mind, he knew he could help her. He also knew, however, Arya would not come to him. She would rather lock away everything and keep those stubborn eyes of hers ahead, breaking through the brick walls with her head.

“Dad?”

He looked up, blinking, to see his two children staring at him. “Yes?”

“You sure you’re awake?” Arya asked.

“Yes, I am.” He laughed. “In fact, would you care to join me for breakfast? Bet you’re starving.”

“Well, we have been practicing for two hours…” Jon claimed. He looked up at his sister who stroked the guitar strings with tips of her fingers and chewed on her lip.

“Suppose we could use some energy. We’ll come back, though, right Jon?” she jumped from the window and put away the guitar.

“Umm…” Jon looked guilty.

Arya sighed in annoyance. “Not her again!”

Ned shook his head and slowly stalked toward the stairs, pursuing the kitchen and whatever food they had. He heard their footsteps and voices, hushed to keep the rest of their family asleep, but Arya’s tone was as sharp and annoyed as loud as a cannon would be.

 

When Catelyn told him Arya couldn’t stay for dinner, since she was allowed to go out on Saturday whenever she wanted as long as she came back till 11, and Arya had a party to be at that night, Ned was more than shocked, more than sad, and just a little less than angry. Arya was his daughter, just like Sansa was Catelyn’s, but he couldn’t bring himself to understand what exactly made Arya actually brush her hair and clip back most of it, as if she was annoyed by the looseness of her hair, and he could not possibly understand why she let Sansa change her face with makeup and why she was not wearing a loose t-shirt and baggy trousers or jeans like every other day.

“So… this party – who’s arranging it?” Ned frightfully asked his daughter as she fastened her combat boots on her feet. She took a second to look up at him and snort – Ned was visibly struck with her grey eyes being lined to look more catlike than ever. He thought there must’ve been something else on her face, something to sharpen those already sharp features even more, but Ned was no fashion crazed man. He couldn’t tell what made his daughter look older than she was.

“ _Dad_!” she snarled, looking back down at her boots. “No party gets ‘ _arranged’_ anymore. It’s just that someone calls someone else who calls someone else and so on, and one day, the place of the first party becomes a regular party-place every second Saturday or whatever day it’s supposed to be. So yeah, I sometimes go there with my friends –“

“What friends?” Ned abruptly cut in.

“Sixteen year old, immature, young people who happen to for some reason tolerate, or even like me, the people I spend most of my free time with, and people that do not require your acquaintance!”

Arya jumped up to her feet, placing her expression into a cheerful, happy one, and quickly hugged her father, escaping his reach before he had the time to hug her back. “I’ll be home around 11.”

“Around? You mother said until 11!”

“Really dad, it’s the same thing. I don’t have a car, so I have to ask someone for a ride home, and everyone else gets to stay more than a couple of hours longer!” Arya smiled. “So be happy with around 11.”

“I can pick you up whenever you want me to.” Ned protested. Anxiety built up in him. He wasn’t ready for this – he couldn’t know if she’d be safe.

“Exactly – whenever _I_ want you to. But I don’t want you to. Bye dad, enjoy the dinner!”

And she was out, slamming the door behind her.

Eddard Stark, former successful pianist and one of the most respected people in Westeros was left slouching against the door frame, rubbing his face and sighing in fear and exhaustion fatherhood brought him.

**ARYA**

Telling her father about her ‘ _friends’_ hurt more than a little bit, and seeing as it was a lie, too, she wished she could just detach herself from all the emotional distress having loving family brought her.

She didn’t _mean_ to lie to him, and she didn’t like to either. But Arya knew there were some things her parents would never allow, and participating in creating or supporting music that they couldn’t – no, _wouldn’t_ – understand was one of them.

Jon waited for her in his car, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel as the music silenced even the slamming of the door behind her. She sunk into her seat and glanced at him. Although he hadn’t looked up from his phone in the hand free of setting the rhythm, she knew he knew she was there.

Finally, after at least three minutes, he sighed and put away his phone before turning down the blaring of guitars, drums and screams.

“When have you gone all heavy metal?” Arya wondered.

Jon glared at her sideways. He scoffed and turned on the car, slowly pulling backward and then starting to drive to their destination.

“I haven’t.” he kept his eyes forward, but the setting of his jaw made Arya wonder why would he be as anxious as he obviously was. “Ygritte recommended them to me.” Arya snorted at this but he pushed on, defending himself and his dearly beloved _girlfriend_. “I should get as educated as I can in every piece of music, well, _good_ music at least.”

“They don’t sound good to me.” Arya bickered.

“That’s because you’re not _listening_.”

 And there that was again. When Jon quickly glanced at her for a moment, she noticed the same wideness and spark in his eyes there always was when he’d show her something new he found, a good song he somehow caught or even a piece he did on his own. The look in his eyes he sometimes had when she would catch him secretly sneaking up on her while playing her piano. The look in his eyes when she played something he showed her correctly on the guitar. The look in his eyes the first time she told him (before she even knew he was already on the same page) that she could not possibly keep forcing herself into classics, how she wanted _more_.

She wondered if there was a similar look on her face at times.

She decided not to consume herself in distracting thoughts but to listen to the song beginning to slowly growl in the car. She softly turned up the music and saw Jon smile from the side of her eye.

Ygritte was a complete rebel to everything that existed in Arya’s world. She had the red hair that somehow burned your eyes, whereas Arya’s mother and sister had the hair softly red, the hair that would soothe and calm. Unless you were as wild as Arya, of course, and it led to nothing but discomfort.

Aside with her looks, Ygritte smiled and growled at words completely normal to Arya. Ygritte held nothing back, fast in her temperament, faster in her witty, rude and right on the spot responses. Ygritte was, above all, something Arya thought was the best thing for her calm and troubled brother at the moment. She’s never let him see that, though. She had let Ygritte see it, because, after all, she wanted nothing more than to be in Jon’s life as long as possible, and if that meant being friends with his wild, rebellious girl – then so be it.

The screaming in the song seemed less wild and more emotional and fitting to the chords and melody once you were patient and observant enough to notice the fullness of it all together. Arya supposed she’s need to be daily surrounded with this music to be able to enjoy it without previously distracting herself from everything else to be able to truly _hear_ it.

After two more songs, her hand bolted out and shut down the music. Before Jon could complain or ask, she blurted out:

“Do you ever hear anything so strong and powerful and you relate to it so freakishly that you can’t take it anymore unless you’re completely alone and free to react anyway you’d usually react?”

Arya doesn’t know if it makes any sense, but she knows, unless she’d like to explode, these were the only words able to express what she felt.

Jon doesn’t even look at her, but she notices how his jaw twitches and how his hands start to grip the steering wheel a little stronger, and when he only says “Yeah.”, she knows not only does he understand, he’s feeling that way exactly then and there, just like her.

So she softly smiled and pulled out his CD collection.

She settles on one of Red Hot Chilly Peppers’ first albums, as they were all quite easy on the ears, distracting and not slow to kill the mood they would need for the party.

“I never knew how they managed to make so many good songs with so simple melodies and not at all complicated vocal.” Jon admitted. “Then I went on a concert, and as they were still testing their instruments, I noticed how different it all is when it combines. When the band started playing, I was swept off my feet, not because they were amazing or anything, but just with the raw power and possibility flowing through them. Anyone could have that, Arya, anyone.”

Arya listened to him carefully before replying: “Maybe you should try forming a band.”

Jon laughed long and hard.

“Dear, sweet Arya.” She hated when he called her that. It was how people described Sansa. It was how Arya never felt and how she didn’t want to be called. It felt too much like a lie, and she despised lies. “What would ever come out of it? How could it ever be good? I’m not good enough.”

“You are good enough. I know it. Dad knows it. Ygritte knows it. If you only let other people _hear_ , all of them would know it.” Arya urged on, staring at him intently, and although she knew he couldn’t look back at her, she knew he could sense her unbreakable stare.

“Ygritte never said that.” Jon claimed and Arya rolled her eyes. Out of the bunch, those were the words he focused on. _Ygritte_. To the Seven Hells with her!

“First of all – you never asked. Second of all – you can’t see her when you’re playing something. And even if you could, you wouldn’t notice it, Jon Snow, because you’re too bloody modest and selfless to take any pride in anything.” Arya almost swore, but she thought it was too early in the night for that. “Ygritte’s a firm rock. She never speaks emotionally, never once looks at you like you’re a sweet puppy or something.” A smile tugged on Jon’s lips, but Arya forced on. “Except when you’re playing. Did you know, when you played that song of yours, the one she called ‘Rotten Tomatoes’, she actually blushed when you played the chorus?”

“In the name of Gods, Arya, are you listening to yourself? She named it ‘Rotten Tomatoes’ herself!”

“She probably would have called her ‘Rotten Hearts’ or something if it weren’t for her stubborn façade. You know it as well as I do – it was as affectionate, giving your song a name, as it could be given it was her.”

Jon shook his head. “We’re almost there.” He muttered.

“Come on, Jon, don’t just change the subject on me!” Arya angrily yelled.

“I’m not, I know how much you hate it.” Jon sighed and took one hand of the wheel to rub his forehead. “But we _are_ almost there, and there’s always time to continue this once we’re alone again. But not now, we’d be late.”

Arya huffed but nodded, the row of cars in front of them proving him right.

As they parked, almost half a mile from the party, the person in the car in front of them turned off the lights and stepped out. Ygritte smirked at them and walked to meet them.

“Welcome to King’s Landing, y’all.” She laughed at their uneasy faces, but took Jon’s hand and shrugged. “The word is that dear old Joffrey might just stay off the scene for a night. Don’t know what we’ll do without his gorgeous voice.”

Arya snorted in laughter and the two joined her. They were still standing in place, Ygritte playfully swinging her and Jon’s joined hands up and down. “The Gods must be very gracious tonight – is it really possible?”

Ygritte nodded and winked. “They say, though, it might be open mic night tonight.”

“Oh, come on!” Jon whined. “One gone, ten to come! With Joff’s voice not screeching into the mic, it’s good, yeah, but then we’ll have to stand a bunch of lousy mice squeaking back!”

Ygritte punched him in the shoulder and stepped closer to him. She leaned her head back, pulling up to her toes, and said into Jon’s frowning face “Not if you get up there, Snow.”

Then she kissed him and Arya started walking. Without turning back around, she shouted “I’ll be there, don’t worry, work it out but please don’t come too soon and keep working it out in front of me!”

She heard grumbled noises from behind and wondered if those were Jon’s muffled responses or his muffled sounds of pleasure. She’d rather take the former, but with Ygritte, the latter was more probable.

Nearing the complexion of buildings, most flashing with colourful lights and completely discarding the stars in the black sky, Arya wondered if people would believe her if she said she was eighteen. She might have been skinny and not much of anything on regular days, but she convinced Sansa into working some of her magic with makeup that day, and felt pretty confident she could be taken the least for seventeen of age. Her cheekbones more profound, her lips slightly darker than natural, her eyes coated in black (though only by one thin line, there was only as much Arya was ready to go for without feeling restrained), she tried doing something with her hair, but as she was completely hopeless, Sansa advised her (she wouldn’t let Sansa touch her hair, she was too sensitive) to just put most of it up to express the sharp features of her face even more. So she kind of pulled it up with numerous clips and whatnot.

And Sansa (although completely repulsed with the image of her sister’s) was proud.

As she walked on, she turned around to see her two companions still on the same spot, completely entwined. She sighed and shook her head, just as someone catcalled behind her. She turned around to see a few guys looking at – wait – they were looking at _her_?

She quickly turned back around, feeling her face drained of blood. Well, that was almost what she asked for. In the mass of people moving toward the King’s Landing, she wasn’t to be noticed as a skinny little girl. There were too many young women (cough, cough, sluts, cough) so if anyone noticed Arya, it would be because she looked at least a bit like them.

Arya pulled her black leather jacket firmly around her body and zipping it up over her unbuttoned black shirt under which she wore a sleeveless black top. Shockingly, her tight jeans were not black, but, naturally, combat boots were made to be black.

She shuddered at the thought of her father if he ever found out where she was heading. She shuddered at the thought of her father seeing her with her shirt unbuttoned. Then, she just shuddered, because she hated lies, once again.

At the entrance gates of King’s Landing, Arya flashed the guards with her phone, showing them the code in a message. They gave her a suspicious look, but in the end, that was the way the guards looked at everyone, and then they let her pass.

Just as she was closing around the corner, so close to the place she really wanted to be in, not in one of the bars or discos all over the place, all of them shaking with terrible, country, pop or rap music (not that she hated particularly any type of music, she just hated the terrible songs, no matter what genre) someone called out to her and she froze on the spot.

“Oi! Yeah, you over there! I bet you my car you’re not a day over 17!”

She turned around to face a boy so round in his waist she thought he was wearing a pillow under his clothes. He was dressed in baggy black jeans and a dark, unbuttoned military shirt. Underneath it he had a black tank top, similar to Arya’s, just… a lot wider.

“Oh, shut your eating-hole boy, it’s obviously not good enough for anything else!” she snarled and turned to walk away. As she spun on her heel, she caught sight of another guy close to the fat boy and two more on her sides. One was just rummaging through some stuff next to a wall, and the other was walking into a bar anyway.

“Shut the fuck up!” And just like that, the boy started toward her, and Arya turned around to see him too close. Damn her combat boots – they were too heavy to run in.

So she quickly unzipped her jacket and fished for something in her inside pocket. Producing the item, she twirled it in her fist and pointed it at the boy so fast he almost pierced himself through her pocket knife.

“Bloody hell bitch, you could of’ killed me with that pointy little thing!”

“What makes you think I still won’t?” Arya growled. “You seem to be eager to run into things too dangerous for your own good.”

Why, oh why, couldn’t Jon and Ygritte show up? She couldn’t bloody well stick this boy with a knife and she didn’t know how to stalk. She wasn’t as afraid as she was annoyed.

That was when someone’s voice spoke directly from behind her.

“You also seem stupid. Go away prick, or take on someone your own size.”

The voice was low and as annoyed as she felt, and it came not only from behind but both from above her. She still couldn’t turn around to face the man, though, as she kept the knife pointed at the boy.

Speaking of the boy, he was now gulping for air and stuttering on words yet unspoken.

“Told you it was good for nothing but eating.” Arya grumbled and thought she heard the man stifle his laughter.

“Oh, fuck off, both o’ you!” the boy shouted and pulled back.

“Come on Hot Pie, it seriously is not worth it.” The other boy called.

Arya laughed and let her hand drop. “Hot Pie?”

She swirled around on her heel and abruptly stopped laughing; she had to move back a bit to be able to look properly into the guy’s eyes. Which were blue. Quite blue. Like, pretty much bluer than any other eyes she’d ever seen. And it was a dark alley, too.

“Hi.” She slowly said.

The guy rolled his eyes. “Yeah _, you’re welcome_.”

“Hey – I didn’t ask for you to jump in! I was handling it well myself!” Arya pointed at him and he moved away. Right. The knife. She put it back into her jacket and looked up sheepishly. “Sorry.”

The guy shook his head, his black hair (maybe it wasn’t black, maybe it was just dark – she couldn’t know, it was too dark really) swiping over his eyes. He brushed it back. It was still too messy.

“Anyway, I think I might’ve helped to at least get them away a bit faster.” He said, waving his hand toward a general direction in which the two had come from.

“Well, even if that is true, now we’ll never know!” Arya smiled mischievously. The guy swore under his breath. As stubborn as she was, she really didn’t want to pull the knife out again this night – and especially not because of her own behaviour. So she offered him her hand. “I’m Arya.”

The guy gave her a suspicious glare before accepting her hand. He had strong features and his hand was just as strong. Arya’s gaze travelled up and down his arm, then his body. He was strong, muscled. She guessed he could’ve been of help if the fight really happened.

“Gendry. Pleased to be met with the hand, not the knife.” He cocked one eyebrow.

She smirked smugly, releasing his hand.

“You’ve got a strong grip for someone who really does look seventeen.” He added.

Arya snorted. “I’d be pleased if you just held back after the ‘strong grip’ part.”

“Then I wouldn’t have spoken honestly. I rather like truth.”

Arya’s eyes flashed to his. He looked a little taken aback with the intensity of her gaze, and he blinked. After a few moments, she roughly replied “I prefer honesty, too.” coming back to her senses, she crossed her arms on her chest, blinked and looked behind him to break their stare. “But I only love it when the one speaking is right.”

“So you’re not seventeen?” Gendry scoffed.

Arya heard footsteps and laughter and turned around to see her half-brother and his girlfriend coming their way. She quickly smiled at Gendry, just as Jon called at her. Before joining them, she laughed.

“No, _honest Gendry_ , I’m not seventeen.” Before Jon decided to stop and meet the guy she had only just met, she walked aside from him and waited for Jon with her hand extended. “I’m sixteen.”

Jon took her hand and pulled her tightly against him, throwing one arm over her shoulders. As Ygritte continued her rant on a band they’ve been fighting over for centuries, Arya stole one last glance at Gendry, to see him frozen on spot, staring at her disbelievingly, shaking with laughter.

“ _Oi, Gendry_!”

She almost thought it wasn’t her voice calling out to him. She really held nothing back, had she?

“ _Yeah_?” he yelled back.

“ _What’s your age_?”

She heard his laughter before he finally shouted “ _Nineteen_!”

“ _TOO OLD_!”

His laughter followed her all the way to Dragonskull, the best place in the whole of King’s Landing, underground, hard rock station.


	2. The Wilderness Beyond Her World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A drunken night out with Jon and Ygritte.

**JON**

Even before they reached the stairs, the floor is vibrating and Jon's heart is pulsing in the rhythm from the underground. Slick walls of the old building with busted windows and graffiti on the wall appears right in front of them, and he tugs Ygritte on his left and Arya on his right to circle the building. There are people climbing down the stairs before them, but the entrance is free of charge and they don't wait long. The stairs are black and slimy, but the walls growing around them are dry and clean. The first level is booked with chairs and restrooms, a few snack shops and light. The second bellow is almost five times bigger than the first, reaching far over, dark, filled with tables and bars and a music podium, but most of all – people. The mass of bodies is everywhere, and Jon pulls the girls closer to him as they stumble and clash through the crowd. It takes them a few minutes to come to the nearest bar.

Ygritte was smiling and laughing and as soon as they climb the high chairs, she leant toward him and bit softly on his ear. Jon shuddered and caught her hair in his hand. Her eyes were half lidded and already dozing off, and Jon knew this was where she belonged. His Ygritte, by his side, in a loud group of rebellious musicians. Her eyes were filled with him as she drank in his eyes and lips, but her ears couldn't hear a word he'd say. She heard the music, she plucked it out between all the voices and noises, and that was what Jon loved about her.

He kissed her deeply, and she responded just as fully, but then he pulled away and told her to wait.

Arya, on his other side, looked too old.

He allowed her to come with them because he knew she's find another way to get in anyway. And then she'd be lost. This way, he kept her as safe as he could, but as he eyed the drink in her hand, already half empty, he knew there was only so much a man could do to keep Arya safe.

"How did they let you get one?" Jon shouted at her ear. "You're not even 17!"

He saw Arya snicker, although the drums were exploding and he couldn't hear her even from this short of a distance. She leaned in to answer. "I don't look it, brother!"

He cocked up his eyebrows, but then he understood. She really did look older. She looked even older than Sansa. Especially in this dark, with her thin face and hollow cheeks, darkness around her eyes not just from the makeup, and something in the way she laughed or smiled mysteriously.  _She could coy anyone_ , Jon thought.

Still, he shook his head. "You're paying it yourself! And if you even dare getting drunk I'm never speaking to you again!"

"Oh, Jon, I know!"

Ygritte drinks as fast as possible, but there's always a drink in her hand. Jon knew she probably plays a few guys to get a free drink, but he didn't care. She never asked him for anything but kisses and touches. And the way she looked at him when he followed her into the dancing crowd, the way he seemed to be the only thing she could see in her intoxicated state, was enough to let go of any jealousy.

She's a snake beneath his hands, and he hates the leather leggings she pulled on that day, and he hates the leather jacket she's wearing, and he feels like the king of the world when she takes it off to reveal a sleeveless top, low cut and all skin to skin when he pushes against her. Ygritte returns the favour of his kisses when she pulls off his button up shirt and leaves him in a black sweatshirt. She trails his shoulders and arms with her teeth and he gulps down his beer.

There was nothing as good as a drunk Ygritte.

**ARYA**

She slowly sipped her drink until Ygritte finally jumped from her stool. She had five drinks, and Arya thought this was the longest she got before pulling Jon into the crowd.

Then she smiled happily and pulled out Jon's wallet from her jacket. The guy was all too easy to steal from.

"ANOTHER!" she yelled at the bartender girl and the girl gave her a wicked grin. Arya sighed and stared at the girl as she handed her the drink.

"This one is on the house!" The girl winked and Arya laughed.

The girl was nice enough, slender, with a big bosom, long black hair and green eyes. Her lips were nice too, plum and red.

But as long as she's a big fan of good looking girls, Arya's never had a real attraction before, so she presumes she's pretty straight – for now.

She let the girl buy her two more drinks before slipping into the crowd in search for a closer view to the stage. She danced through the mass with her drink above her head, enjoying the soft level of dizziness coursing through her body. Just enough to feel light, like you're about to fly any second.

She barely made it to the fence surrounding the podium. She huffed and drank up before throwing the paper glass somewhere behind her. The guys on the stage were doing a pretty good job, but the singer/guitarist was getting a little red in his face. His skin looked like it was about to explode, and his voice was obviously straining. Arya sees it coming just two seconds before his voice broke on a note. Luckily, most of the people were there just to have fun, but she sadly shook her head as the singer picked up where he was and somehow (not very convincingly) makes it to the end of the song. Arya shrugged and clapped along with everyone else.

Just then, her eyes caught a sight of a young, tall, familiar man.

Her eyebrows almost disappeared beneath her hair at the surprise written over her face. She followed the man with her eyes as he paced around the stage until the band cleared out all the instruments. Then he climbed the stage and blue eyes caught the light Arya longed to see reflecting in them.

"Hello folks!" he says into the mic, and the girls beside her screamed crazily. Arya slowly pulled away from them as their voices called out to him.

Gendry pretended not to notice them and nervously wriggled with the mic cable. Arya wondered if anyone else could see his nervousness, as he kept his light smirk on, his voice steady, and everyone seemed to like him and yell that he's 'the man'.

She snorted and waited till the screaming lessened so he could continue with his words.

"We're having an open mic night! So any of you that want to sing or play or anything actually  _can_  for a change, although not as easily. I'm going to have to ask you to come to backstage, where we'll check your voice or just a small verse on your instrument, before we let you climb up and ruin everyone's night."

She though he' saw her then, his eyes looking right at her, and he smiled wider, almost breaking in laughter. She frowned and he looked away. He's hot.

Arya did  _not_  think that.

"So, enjoy your night and please don't waste our time if you're a voiceless, pointless, spoiled prick! Good night everybody!"

Everyone was laughing at his description of a singer that should not sing, and everyone knew who he meant by that. Arya hoped Joffrey wasn't somewhere in the crowd, else she was sure Gendry wouldn't be hot for long.

She watched him as he quickly jumped from the stage, not turning around even for a second. The reflectors blinked and pulsed for a moment before settling in a rhythm of blue lights. Arya squinted at the figures walking onto the stage. Four figures, all dressed in casual, rumpled clothes, and all four of them had holes on their left knees and white cloaks around their shoulders.

The leader, a green eyed young man with hair as black as coal and tumbling a little past his shoulders, all clean and shiny, screamed into the mike as the drummer started setting a fast pace, the guitar screaming long and high. Arya instantly recognized the song. It was one of the only songs her brother Robb recognized as good, although he followed his family leads in classical music.

Just before the chorus, the man raised one hand and shouted "Hi everybody, we're the  _Kingsguard_  and we hope you're all enjoying your night!" and then he sang again in a husky, screaming voice –  _Welcome to the Jungle_.

Arya laughed and smiled, jumping up and down and singing along. She hoped Jon wasn't too distracted with Ygritte's ass to notice the song and the actual well performance. She turned around, pointlessly, but there was no sign of anyone with black or red hair she knew belonged to her brother and friend.

The  _Kingsguard_  played only three songs, and Arya was only slightly disappointed with their approach at ' _Behind Blue Eyes'_ , but was instantly cheered up when they rocked through ' _Another Brick in the Wall'_ , which wasn't an easy achievement.

Next were the  _Starfell Lords_ , and she bluntly acknowledged their good lead guitar before heading back to the bar, uninterested in their soft performance. They played two songs, ' _Where the Wild Roses Grow'_  and ' _Otherside'_. She enjoyed them both, but not enough to be patient for the end. She personally preferred ' _Otherside'_  over any other  _RHCP_  song, but had hoped the night would be an intense one. She wanted to feel adrenaline and vibrations in her heart, but the  _Starfell Lords_  helped only the anxiety to kick in. It wasn't for any particular reason, but most of the songs had their own emotions which you couldn't fight if they were as loud as every single of them was in the Dragonskull.

Arya swirled around on her stool, leaning her elbows on the bar and gulping down her beer from the bottle. She hoped Jon would return soon, and while she enjoyed the various performances, she was getting a little bored. She smiled when the  _Dothraki_  shook everyone up with ' _Riders on the Storm'_ , groaned when the Red Priestess sang  _Nickleback's_  ' _Rockstar'_  in a high pitched voice and wished Jon was there to share her impressions.

Soon enough, though, it was nearing quarter to eleven and Arya huffed in annoyance. She slammed the third empty beer bottle she had while sitting there and started to ask for another one when a hand slapped her back and a deep voice shouted over her ear "Two beers!"

The bartender girl cocked an eyebrow at the guy and then gave her a quick glance of disappointment (Arya had to stifle her drunken giggles at the girl's obvious intentions with her) before producing two bottles and taking the guys money.

"How come you're not on the stage?" Arya shouted at Gendry when he leaned onto the counter.

He smiled. "Not my thing."

"You don't play?"

"Aren't there enough of the musicians already?"

She ignored his answer as he ignored her question, and they both tugged on their drinks.

His cheeks were flushed from the heat and his hair was ruffled more than a bit, and she wondered whether it was just from his own stressed hands or some girl's assault.

Perhaps both.

"Do you play?"

Arya rolled her eyes and smirked. "Only Mozart."

He laughed and she gulped down more beer. If only she was being sarcastic. He didn't notice though. He was drumming his fingers in the rhythm and looking at the stage. The Red Priestess was just wrapping up her lame performance and Arya huffed, not having to yell as the music was over.

"Lamest performance ever."

Gendry looked over at her, quizzical brows perked up and his mouth opened lightly in surprise. "She seemed all right to me." He looked over the ground and nodded his head at them. "They all seem to like her, too."

"Just because she's dressed like a whore and can reach high notes doesn't make her a good singer. In fact, I haven't heard anyone ever make  _Nickleback_  sound so bad." Arya clicked her teeth against the beer bottle in annoyance before taking a gulp.

"It didn't  _sound_  like  _Nickleback_. It was her version." Gendry shrugged and took his beer. "What's so wrong with that?" he took a big gulp and Arya caught herself staring at his jaw and neck. She shook her head, half in rejection at his words and half in tries to clear her mind. Gendry sat close to her and his scent was quite refreshing and sharp, so it wasn't quite easy to keep her mind straight and her thoughts pure.

"I'm not saying the remakes and varieties in performances are wrong. I'm saying  _hers_  was wrong." Arya scoffed. Gendry laughed long and hard, until his laughter was muffled with the next performer – Viserys Targaeryen as _the Dragon Master_. Arya rolled her eyes and huffed in annoyance at both his artistic name and pointless songs. It wasn't of any band she was fond of. Gendry seemed neutral, although she thought the setting of his jaw was a little too tight not to be annoyed-like.

And there it was – her feeling appreciation at his looks. She wasn't like that! She wasn't like Sansa, she acknowledged good looking people but didn't bother with them enough to take even a second glance.

She downed her beer, feeling as irritated as ever, and jumped down from the stool. Gendry gave her a questioning look.

"Could've help you get down, milady." He mocked her and grinned. She shoved him in the shoulder, paid her drink and waved.

"I'll have you know, you'd be harmed in a way that would delete any chance of you having any offspring at what you just called me if I only weren't as tipsy as I currently am."

He laughed and inclined his head in a very polite, royal manner and she shoved him again seeing he was mouthing 'milady' again. Then she turned around and pushed into the crowd, determined in finding Jon and Ygritte.

Five minutes later, she still hadn't caught any glimpse of them and her time to go was nearing. Just as she was typing a message into her phone, about to virtually insult Jon with almost all the cuss words she knew, someone coughed into the mike and her blood cooled.

"I'm going to be short – my girlfriend is drunk and beautiful, and I'm not so sober myself. So here's a song to Ygritte and my sister, who's probably lost somewhere in the crowd."

Arya frantically pushed to the front rows, elbowing her way to the fence around the podium. " _JON FUCKING SNOW WHAT IS THIS?!_ " she yelled as she leaned over the fence, but he didn't hear her.

With an electric guitar in his hand and Ygritte at the drums who was smirking wickedly, Jon cleared his throat and strummed the first chords of  _Aerosmith's_  ' _Walk This Way'_.

Arya mouthed 'what the hell', but the people seemed to love him, and the other guitarist seemed to have no problem fitting into Jon's playing and Ygritte's drumming.

She has never heard Jon sing so freely – she's never heard him sing anything different than humming along with soft notes detaching from his fast fingers. She was influenced greatly by everything he did, music especially, and the shock burst through her at this new, different Jon.

Jon sang without noticing any of the people before him, his eyes tightly shut and his neck straining.

The crowd roared, screamed and cheered. It was the best performance of the night.

For a moment, Arya's eyes wondered off her brother and she saw Gendry standing next to the podium, laughing and clapping. He held his thumbs up when Ygritte glanced at him and she laughed, ecstatically flinging the drumsticks in the air, pouncing her feet and head, looking happier than ever.

When Jon screamed one last time, the music blaring and stropping before his voice did, explosions of applauses were rubbing over the walls of Dragonskull, and Gendry ran up the podium, just as Jon took off his guitar, and the taller man clapped him on the back and yelled into the microphone.

"Jon Snow everybody,  _JON SNOW_!"

**JON**

The streets were empty, dark and cold.

Ygritte held him around his waist, helping him walk. Arya was out of their reach, walking fast and stubborn with her hands on her chest, squeezed protectively. Gendry Waters walked behind them, carrying Jon's guitar and keeping himself silent.

Well, it wasn't really Jon's guitar, as his was back home safely tucked under his bed, out of Catelyn's sight, but apparently Jon was the winner of the unofficial battle that night, and had to take home his prize. He didn't feel sober enough even to take himself home, though, so Gendry has been there to help.

Jon groaned loudly at the ever persistent ache pulsing in his head. He drank too much, did too much, and had no strength to care at the moment. It would come back to him in the morning – that much he knew.

Ygritte was, for a change, keeping her mouth shut, but Jon knew she was smirking, proud and pleased.

His car was so far, and by the time they reached it, Arya was sitting on the hood, glaring at all of them.

"What  _was_  that?" she spat angrily at Jon, jumping down from the car.

"Come on now, he was brilliant!" Gendry answered, coming to stand beside Jon. "Both of them, really."

Arya simply ignored him and pointed a finger at Jon. "You disappear, climb up the stage and take the freaking guts out of me and everyone else, no heads up, no nothing!" she threw her hands in the air, huffing. "And  _now_ I'm late and you're still as drunk as possible, and except of the hangover, you'll also have your fucking  _conscience_  to deal with in the morning – if you get to remember anything!"

Jon pushed away from Ygritte and straightened his back. He threw a glare at his sister. "Arya, shut up."

"How  _dare_  you!" she screamed.

"You're not being rational!" Ygritte came to his defence. "He's been fucking amazing up there, and you should be glad for your brother!"

"I'm not saying he wasn't brilliant, I'm not saying I'm not glad, I'm saying he was wrong to act the way he did! I'm not sorry for him getting up there, but that was the only good thing about it!"

"Yeah? And what about Jon's wallet, what with that?" Ygritte poisonously asked.

Jon winced and quickly looked at Arya, who paled and shuddered. "Did you steal my wallet?"

"I only took 20 bucks, Jon."

Jon couldn't believe her, he stepped closer to her and yelled "That's not the point, you fool! What about trust? You're my sister, you're supposed to be loyal!"

"And so are you?"

"And what did he do, Arya?" Gendry scoffed from behind. Jon turned to look at him. The guy wasn't looking at him at all, just staring intently at Arya. "What exactly did he do to endanger you in any possible way?"

Arya's form slouched and she turned away from them all, opening the car door and slipping down to passenger's seat. Jon saw her shuffle and throw something on the backseat – his wallet.

Ygritte stared furiously at the girl for a moment before sighing and turning to touch Jon's shoulder. "Get in the car Jon, I'll drive."

"What with your car?" Jon asked, suddenly feeling exhausted. He was so angry with Arya, but his head really hurt and he was still drunk.

Ygritte shrugged. "I'll come back tomorrow."

"I could drive your car." Gendry proposed. When Ygritte glared at him, he added "Jon would come with."

"And why would you think I'd let you anywhere near my car?" Ygritte spat.

Gendry exchanged a frightened look with Gendry. "I, um, well… you do know me for three years. D'you really think I'd dare doing it any wrong?"

Ygritte was still glaring, and Jon knew she wouldn't give up. She was probably working out another good argument, and he really wasn't up for any more of them.

"You can drive my car." Jon said. Ygritte looked at him disbelievingly. "You can go home."

"I wouldn't really let you go back in this state." She told him. "You'd only find trouble."

He shrugged.

"Well, you could take him your place?" Gendry suggested. Jon frowned, but the guy didn't bother. "Your dad would be okay with it, Snow. And it'd keep you in less trouble then showing up your doorstep hammered."

"He's right, Jon." Ygritte said.

Jon huffed and waved his hand at the car, where Arya was leaning back, keeping her eyes shut, not hearing anything with the doors and windows closed. "I can't leave Arya alone."

"She wouldn't be. I kind of know where you live, and she'd show me the rest of the way. She'll be safe." Gendry assured him.

Jon sighed. "You know she's only sixteen, right?"

"I've been warned."

Running one hand through his wild hair, Jon gave up and, defeated, took Ygritte's hand in his own. "Take her away, then."

Gendry smirked. "Let me get you your wallet first."

**GENDRY**

Arya Stark was a funny little thing. She scowled and slouched in the seat for their whole ride home. When she finally spoke, it was an answer to his question about the band she put on playing.

" _Ramones_. Not  _the Clash._  There's a huge difference."

Gendry knew exactly who they were, but it was the only thing he could ask to make sure she'd respond, even if in annoyance, so he wouldn't be forced to the awkward silence for the whole time.

"Which do you prefer more?" he asked again.

He felt her glare and shuffled awkwardly behind the steering wheel. He liked Jon's car – it was an old, though well kept,  _Chevy_  model.

"Depends on the situation _. The Clash_  – they're simple quality and worth your time being spent only in listening to their music, but the  _Ramones_  are an everyday thing."

"I prefer  _Ramones_  only when I want to get really drunk. They keep a good company, and better atmosphere."

Arya stayed silent. He took it as the only way he could possibly be right in her opinion.

He was surprised when after five minutes she spoke up first.

"I'm not angry for him because he went up there and didn't tell me." She silently said.

When no other explanation came, Gendry frowned. "Why are you angry, then?"

"I don't really know if I'm really  _angry_. I guess I'm a little disappointed."

Gendry worked through her words for a moment before guessing. "He took Ygritte up there."

Arya snorted, shaking her head. "She probably pushed him up or something."

"That's not my point – he didn't ask you to join him."

She stayed silent once again and Gendry let the matter go. He wasn't a part of their family. Intruding wouldn't do any of them any good. And he really appreciated Jon as his friend. He even thought Arya was quite all right, herself. Robb he didn't love very much, but respected the guy as he knew their friendship would never be unforced and very open. Robb didn't make friends a lot, and even less with people less than him.

"Where do I go now?" he asked after twenty minutes, and Arya softly instructed him back to her house, speaking clearly and just in time for him not to get confused. With her as his guidance, and the lack of silence, he finally relaxed and decided she wasn't bad at all. When he pulled the car into her driveway, he looked at her and noticed she was already looking at him. She looked younger than earlier – half of her makeup rubbed off in irritation, her eyes bigger and stormier in their natural look.

"What are you going to tell them?"

"Jon drove me back and then went with Ygritte. We were late because Ygritte lost her wallet. She found it, though, so everything's fine."

Gendry nodded and smiled.

"How are you going home?"

"By foot most probably." Gendry shrugged. "I like walking at night."

"I like walking all the time." Arya laughed and pulled open the door. "Thanks, honest Gendry. Take care."

He nodded and exited the car, throwing her the keys and walking away, turning around once more to see her softly bang her head against the entrance door. She hesitantly pulled the knob and he decided he wouldn't intrude her privacy anymore. He turned around once more and walked into the night.

**CATELYN**

She woke up when Ned started shouting.

Rubbing at her eyes, the only woman in the house softly slipped into her robe and slippers, pulling the fabric tightly around her body as she descended the stairs.

"Could you keep it down, please?"

Ned and Arya looked thunderstruck when Catelyn peered through the kitchen door, holding onto the knob. Her husband was standing in front of her daughter, who sat at the table, and both looked angry. Arya was all rumpled and covered in guilt and Catelyn remembered how she looked scared when her mother made her promise she would try to come a little earlier that night – for her father's sake.

The woman glanced at the clock and sighed tiredly. It was past midnight.

"When did you come home, Arya?" Catelyn asked.

"About a half an hour ago. I really couldn't come any earlier." The girl said.

Ned was slightly shaking with rage.

"Arya." Catelyn strongly said. The girl looked up with, thankfully, a pinch of fear in her dark eyes. "You wouldn't think so little of me that you'd believe I wouldn't notice Jon and his car gone?"

Arya froze and Ned looked up at his wife in surprise. He most probably hadn't noticed anything off. After all, Jon never came to be with them during family dinners. Catelyn like that tradition. She was sorry for the child, but she would never be able to look at him in anything but honest disliking.

"Mother, I – "

"You  _nothing_. What happened, Arya?"

Arya shortly glanced at her father before answering hesitantly. Ned was still mad, his arms tightly crossed over his chest. But now he looked positively puzzled, and Catelyn knew he would give their daughter a chance to explain her behaviour.

"We – we went… with Ygritte… she, she lost her wallet and we had to look for it! I am really sorry, and we  _have_  found it, but it took us some time to find our way back to each other and then – and then it was already 11 or so, and that's it." Arya grumbled. She was now looking somewhere beside her mother's head, who started rubbing at her chin.

"You know I do not approve of those things. You are grounded for next two weeks – no going out, no nothing. And no morning guitar lectures for a month!"

"But mom!" Arya groaned and moaned.

"Arya." Her father warned her through gritted teeth. "Behave. Your mother is right. Where were you anyway?"

"I was somewhere with Jon and Ygritte, all right?"

"No, not all right!" Ned shouted, pointing one finger at her. "You told me you'd go to a party with your friends! You lied to me, and once someone lies to me, I tend to lose all my trust in them. Even if they're my very own children!"

Arya stared at ned unblinkingly. "I just wanted to get out a bit." She whispered.

"Where, Arya?" Catelyn impatiently said. "Where did you go with them?"

Arya looked guiltier than ever. Her shoulders slouched and her teeth gnawed onto her lip. "We went to King's Landing." Arya shifted uncomfortably on her chair. "To Dragonskull."

Catelyn let out a long, shuddering breath and pressed her eyes tightly shut for a moment – her biggest fear for Arya was coming true. Her daughter was straining away from them. She wasn't listening, wasn't behaving, she didn't do anything properly.

Catelyn stumbled on her way up the stairs and before she reached the top, she heard Ned calling after her silently. " _Cat_?"

She turned around, holding herself up by the wall.

"Are you all right?"

But Catelyn just shook her head firmly. "Talk to her. Scream at her. I don't care. Just get it out of her."

"What?"

Catelyn gave her loving, kind husband a strong, sharp look of pure Tully ice. "I said: do not let our child become a wildling."

And with that, Catelyn Stark turned around and left.


	3. No Point In Delaying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hold on for a bit, and you'll be making a huge leap into Arya's future (sort of).

**ARYA**

She loved Bach when she was little. She adored the easy flow of his compositions and his clever way of subtly filling the empty air with only the simplest of verses. He was never as hard to play as Mozart or Beethoven (not that she had anything against those two). As she grew, Bach started to bore her. But then again, classics all in all were starting to annoy her. She hated spending hours at the piano, hated the guidelines in music she was forced to follow, she hated the precise manner of positions and movements – she hated rules. She wanted freedom. Every once in a while, she would sit at the piano on her own, play a softer, easier song or just sit and stare at the keys and she would finally enjoy the musical presence.

When Jon started teaching her how to play the guitar, and even when she skipped through rock songs on her laptop, she felt better. She started appreciating music even more. She knew how to enjoy it better than uneducated listeners. She was grateful even in states of annoyance, but when she was all alone, free to even softly chant to herself or sing loudly in the empty house, she was the happiest.

"Arya?"

Her father found her in Jon's room that morning.

Jon lived in the basement, transforming it into a kind of alternative music heaven, with vinyl records hung on the walls and shelves, his three guitars, two acoustic and one electric on the black leather couch Arya didn't dare to come close to since the time she accidentally walked into her brother and his girlfriend half naked on it. Mostly frightened for her sanity and scarred with traumas for the rest of her life, she still felt a small pinch of amusement at their position – Ygritte on top, of course.

"What are you playing?" her father's voice rang through the empty space.

"Nothing, really." she was just strumming the few tones in what seemed a compatible line.

Ned came to stand beside her where she was sitting in Jon's chair, holding his guitar – the bad one (it wasn't really bad, it was just very old and shabby and that was why Arya preferred it). "It sounds nice. It's not one of Jon's songs, is it?"

Arya gave him an irritated glare. It was early morning, and Jon was still at Ygritte's. Her father looked like he had also just woken up, but she was up since 6 AM. She knew her mother wouldn't allow her playing that day. "You always call them 'Jon's songs'. First of all, they're not his, they're famous artists' songs, and second of all – if they're his all right, they're mine, too. I listen to that type of music as much as he does."

Ned inclined his head, having been smart enough to look at least a little bit guilty. "I'm sorry. I wasn't aware of this."

"Well, you should be. Because that's the music I like too, dad."

She wasn't sure whether she meant that in 'Jon likes it and I LIKE IT TOO!' way or in 'I like classical music but I LIKE THIS TOO' way. She wasn't sure she would be able to tell her father the truth if she knew it. She wouldn't ever want to disappoint him.

"I know. It's only natural. You're evolving and – "

"I'm not  _evolving_ , dad!" she huffed. "This isn't a phase and it isn't just a random teenager drama I'm trying to get attention by. I'm really in love with this kind of music and it makes me as happy as damned Chopin makes Sansa happy!"

Ned stared at her with a scrutinizing look for a few moments.

"Your mother thinks you shouldn't practice  _this kind of music_."

Arya stared back up at him, holding the guitar tightly with her hands. "I am very sorry for my mother. Maybe she should lock me up down here, too."

" _Arya_!"

She lowered her gaze at the guitar and adjusted her elbow on its side top. She defiantly avoided speaking up again, no matter how wrong her father said her behaviour was. There was something lacking in his own behaviour, and that was what gave her strength to ignore his attempts in making her see the right.

When he finally left, she sighed and returned to playing the melody that had her mind boiling for the whole morning.

She sat and played and perfected almost all of the melody, barely conscious of the time passing by, as she lingered in her little reality of music and creation. She was still playing when Jon stumbled in and crushed her beneath the weight of his arms on her shoulders, pressing down of her and trembling. She felt the guitar drop along with his words, unshed tears in his eyes. His hold on her was loosening when she caught him in her embrace as his legs started tumbling down. She was there around him, cradling him as he shook and repeated his girlfriend's name.

"Jon?" she cried as he started slipping from her grasp.

"Ygritte…" he said again. "Ygritte…" his eyes found his sister's and he shuddered. "Ygritte is dead."

They slipped down to the floor together, tangling bunch of limbs and heat of their bodies and cold in their hearts. She held him when he couldn't cry, wouldn't. She held him as he tried to stop drowning in a sweep of remorse and sadness and despair.

Arya was his sister, after all. She wouldn't let him suffer alone. So she cradled her big brother and ran her fingers through his hair, whispering 'so sorry' and 'Jon I love you' all the time.

Their father was the first to find them and leave them at peace and less peace than possible.

**4 years later**

**SANSA**

There was no point in delaying the unescapable.

Sansa sighed and tugged her purple skirt down, fixing and straightening the already flawless fabric on her skin. She picked her clothes with most delicate attention, and although she had done all the numbers and ran all the possibilities, everything seemed utterly wrong, now that she was supposed to step out and bring her best out in the light.

She sighed again and stepped into the small, barely clean bathroom. She splashed water over her trembling, cold hands; that would not do – her fingers had to be compliant, submissive, relaxed. But as she skimmed her fingers through the hair on her back, combing the already perfect locks, her eyes looked half defeated, half horrified. The blue was as light as possible, her pupils small inside. Her face was even paler than usual, her perfect, symmetric, crescent eyebrows frowning. Her lips were a small thin line, and not even the beautiful, faint rosy gloss could made them look anything but white.

Calm yourself, she kept repeating. It's no big deal – you've had public performances before.

This is different – she kept responding out loud, although as quiet as a breeze.

She's never had a performance all for herself, without anyone beside her or in the background. She never played in front of so many people as there were right outside of the backstage.

No point in delaying, she thought again. What happens will happen anyway, and she just had to do her best.

Determination washed her over as she stepped back and forward. She would go out there, and play through the night like it was the last thing she would ever do.

Lights were blinding, the crowd was roaring.

She knew it was all fake – lights were not as strong at all, the people were hushed, only whispering and throwing her expectant glances and smiles. She kept her head up high, her shoulders back, her smile polite and relaxed. She wouldn't allow the storm she felt to be felt by everyone else.

Look for your family, she thought. They will calm you.

What she saw wasn't calming at all.

Her parent's seats in the front row were empty. Jon sat in the second row, just behind their supposed spots, and Robb, his fiancé Jeyne, Rickon, Jory, Margaery, Loras, Renly and Willas all there. But Bran's seat was empty, too.

Just as she thought the smile was going to fade from her face once again, she settled in the chair at the piano forte, massive, glistening black beast, she looked back at her family's faces and saw what she had missed the first time. Or rather,

Who.

She never thought the sight of her younger sister was make her feel as happy as she was currently feeling. She never thought she would witness the pride and excitement on Arya's features. She never thought she would have to stifle her thrilled laughter at the sight of those grey, usually so cold, now so bright and alive eyes. Arya cocked one eyebrow up and grinned, holding her thumbs up.

Sansa hadn't had the privilege of time to marvel at the way her sister's face had changed in almost 4 years they were apart, so she left it boiling in the back of her mind, as she placed her now completely eager fingers upon the piano keys and smiled softly, only for herself, knowing it would all go well.

She was supposed to play Mozart first – she had practiced everything in perfect order for almost the whole year.

Screw Mozart, she thought, he was long dead and wouldn't mind a little bit of family affection crawling into the plan, and she started off with a composition that brought her and her sister's hearts a little closer.

She loved the music even more when it was by her choice, for someone's pleasure.

"I didn't think you could still play that without notes."

"I didn't think you would show up so suddenly. It was an unexpected, very welcome surprise."

Arya laughed. "Bet that was why you had to make one on your own."

Sansa smiled fondly through the tears and gathered Arya's slight form in her embrace. Her sister's arms enveloped her just as eagerly, if not even a little painfully.

"Brilliant." Arya whispered on Sansa's ear. "Simply brilliant, you were."

Sansa clutched her sister closer to her heart and smile into her unruly, dark curls. "I'm so glad you're back."

Ned and Catelyn arrived a minute into Sansa's outstanding performance, and her little brother came along, too. There was a knack, though.

Bran Stark had an accident when he was only 10 years old, and the fatal event kept him locked to his wheelchair still. He was now 17 years old, thin, pale, with handsome facial features and a skilled, highly intellectual mind.

He was another surprise that evening.

When Sansa and Arya finally distangled from their embrace, she looked at the rest of her family: Robb and Jeyne, side by side, pride evident on their faces; her little brother Rickon, so very excited for his sister, even in his young eleventh year. Behind them, stood her friends: Margaery, Loras, Renly and, oh, dear, her wonderful, kind Willas. She moved her eyes away from his wonderful gaze and looked at her parents, with Bran between them. Only, she thought they had somehow, inexplicably forgotten his chair, and were holding him up – but then she saw the tears in her mother's eyes, and the finally easy look on her father's face (the man hadn't looked relaxed for years) and she noticed there was a reasonable distance between her parents and brother.

"Bran…" she gasped. He towered over her, with his 17 years, and stood without a hunch in his back, without crutches in his hands, supporting himself on his father's shoulder with one hand to keep his legs from trembling – but he was still standing, proud of himself and of his sister.

"You were remarkable, sister." He said softly and reached for her – it was an instinct to rush to him, and instinct she developed since the incident – whenever Bran reached for her, she would be there in instant. No was the same – yet, so different.

The happy tears in her eyes swelled until there was no point in her eyes at all, she saw nothing but misty shape of her brother as she tucked him in her embrace – or maybe, it was him who held her inside his arms. "Bran!" she laughed and gasped and cried, and the tears were so many and so huge she thought she might never stop crying. But oh, it felt wonderful.

Bran squeezed her tightly, comfortingly, shaking slightly from laughter, too. She wondered if anyone else was crying (she knew her mother was).

She might have felt a pang of guilt, just then – maybe even a pang of jealousy, and maybe just a bit of anger. She hadn't been with Bran on his therapies for a long time – she hadn't seen his first steps – she wasn't aware of how well he had progressed and her parents never told her how soon he would be able to walk again.

Later, she was told it was a kind of a gift and a surprise to all of them but Ned and Catelyn, and Sansa's negative feelings retreated, giving place for even more happiness.

**JON**

"How are you doing?" Arya suddenly appeared behind him on the porch. He sighed and laughed.

He had been celebrating with his family for almost three hours since they returned from Sansa's show. He had been acting happy, proud, excited, emotional, and all the rest that came to witnessing someone's special night. Of course, he had to put in double effort into his behaviour, since both Sansa and Bran were having that night.

It wasn't that he hadn't felt happy and proud of them and overly excited for his siblings, it was just that it was hard to show all of those with still feeling terribly hard negativity beside all of those. He could have broken down and cried and showed them it was from all of the happiness he felt, but then, he feared, he would have kept weeping for all that was wrong in their lives. And he hadn't cried in years, not even after Ygritte died, and he promised himself he would be stronger than that.

Arya's arrival was a nice surprise, a support and a happy spot for Jon. But with her presence came the questions he knew would burst from her as soon as possible.

He hoped it could have been the day after or at least in the morning.

He drank too much wine to keep his distance from emotions and short answers.

And there she was, standing beside him, all grown up and stern faced. He thought she would grow to become softer than she used to be, he had thought she would come to learn a few things and cherish the warmth of smiles on her own and everyone else's faces.

But he was wrong.

Arya's eyes filled up with even more of the winter that cursed through her family's veins. Her eyes became even darker than his own, than his father's. Her cheekbones so pronounced he thought that was something all of the girls, and especially Sansa, be jealous of. Her skin as fair as snow covering Winterfell's grounds. Her hair a long, wild mess of curls and locks. Her neck seemed longer than before, and her whole appearance seemed like a woman's rather than a girl's. He supposed she was a woman, now, after all.

"I'm fine. Arya. Really." He scoffed at her. "I should be asking you that question, you're the one that's been half the world away for four years. Winterfell doesn't change. And you obviously have."

"Jon, really." she sighed impatiently. That was one of her traits that neither he or their father possessed. Catelyn was certainly not as openly impatient, at least. But Arya… she had something different than the steady, firm winter-like patience. She had a snowstorm within her, rather than ice cage. "I've been there where it's hot and peachy, I've learnt a lot of things, some you would not be able to learn in the north, and it was, all in all, a brilliant experience that I do not want to repeat. I'm not made for hot sun and beaches and the noisiness of the oversea lands. I burn in the sun, and I wish to cut everyone's throat when they make so many, useless and loud noises. I want you to tell me, how are you doing?"

He looked at her long and hard, trying to decipher the biggest difference in her since he last saw her.

Agility. No, that wasn't it… was it… wisdom? No, she's always had that, it was just different with that childish thirst for proving herself. Maybe it was experience. Hard experience. Maybe that's what made her eyes looked like ice blocks. Or maybe it was also this weird type of strength, different than the one their father possessed. Arya was like a raw piece of steel before. She was so strong, yet too sharp on the edges, with visible flaws and dents and too harmful for even those she didn't want to hurt. And easier to break than the steel she's become.

She was like a blade, now… no, blades are too easy to break.

She was like a hammer.

Yes, that was exactly what his not so innocent, little sister had become.

"I'm having a hard time with Catelyn. It's been like that ever since you left." He finally said, defeated and cornered. He moved back to sit on the porch bench. She settled beside him after two short seconds. He leaned down, twisting his hands in between his knees. She watched him, completely still as she leaned back in the bench, her hands crossed on her chest. "Job's same as always. We have a new boss, though. He's all kinds of crazy and twisted, and I doubt I'd be able to have much progress with this one in charge. I'm thinking about finding a new job, but the guys… I'd be too sorry to leave them, and as we all have little time anyway, it'd be next to impossible to hang out if I worked somewhere else." He makes a short stop, twisting his way of thoughts, avoiding the unavoidable – the biggest problem. He continues with less tough subjects. "Father's been having some extra tension lately, too. I reckon it's good you're back, not only for me, Sansa and Bran, but for him and the rest, too. You left too quickly, too unexpected. Uh…" It started getting harder, one face, misty with time gone by, looming in his vision. He think there's a small choke in the next words as they spill out. "The band is good. They're really good, I mean, we are. I'm not the vocal, though, we've got a good lad for that. Gendry plays, too, you remember Gendry, right?" she nods her head. "Well, we've gotten a bit closer in the last few years. He's a good lad, clever one at that. Got some problems of his own."

Then there's silence. "Jon…"

"I don't think I can talk about her yet." He blurts out. "About Ygritte." It's completely unnecessary mentioning her name.

"It's been four years, Jon."

"All the same." He shrugged. "For so long I stayed quiet and now, suddenly, I'm supposed to rant."

"It's all right, Jon."

Jon felt his sisters hand rub over his shoulder. He leaned into her touch and she scooted closer, enveloping him inside her hug, so much like that horrible day 4 years ago.

With his head on her shoulder, they talked about Braavos and Winterfell, what was different and new, what they like or disliked, and then they talked about Harrenhal and it turned out Jon hadn't stepped a foot into that place without Ygritte.

"Now that's just bollocks, Jon." Arya scolded him. "You think she'd be touched? You think that's the way she mourn you? Like hell – listen, I bet she'd kick your arse if she knew how you acted!"

Jon laughed lightly. "I bet she would."

"I bet I will, if you keep on doing nothing." Arya warned him.

Then it became obvious – Arya grew up, once and for all, the child in her replaced with a young, but still, woman. She was the one calming him down, making him laugh, and Jon felt a weird combination of nostalgia (for her younger version, since he really hated the fact that he had missed four years of her life), delight (because she was finally back with him, and he didn't think she was going back to Braavos) and, strangely, remorse.

With her swift, long fingers gently threading his hair, her voice saying things she knew would make him feel good, Arya, in that moment, reminded him of what having a mother would feel like.

But had he not been there for her like this, too? Hadn't he comforted her all of those many times she would bicker with her parents? He doubted she felt like he was her father, then.

But then again, unlike him, Arya truly had both father and mother.

And then she said something, and he laughed, and forgot about the dilemma.

"Sansa, please! Come on, you've never been there, you've never seen it! How can you know it's so bad?"

"Arya, my sweet little sister," Sansa said, almost impatiently, "I know what you prefer. And it is black, intoxicated, loud and all in all completely… out of my range. You go, and have fun, I'll go out with Margaery and Loras."

Jon saw Arya huff and surrender, throwing her arms around Sansa for the last time before striding toward him, all determined and excited. Sansa smiled at Jon, and he smiled back, before he too turned around, and as Arya caught up with him, left the house and went toward his car.

As they settled down, buckling with their seatbelts, Arya started humming some melody, and when Jon started the car, she turned on the music, easily picking through his CD collection and turning it on with a practiced hand.

"Would you like to call your band mates?" Arya asked him. "I wouldn't mind meeting them, and if you'd like to spend some time with them there, too, you know, to feel better – "

"Arya, no." Jon stopped her and gave her a sideways glare before looking back at the road. "I haven't seen you in four years, and I wouldn't change you for anyone – just for tonight, I'm sure you'll get on my nerves soon enough."

She laughed and smacked his arm. "Shut up!"

He ignored her and only grinned. "Besides, half o' the boys is there already."

"What, they're not playing without you or something, are they?"

He shook his head. "They just go there almost every night. Good music, irritating, stupid people which they love to annoy. Good people. People they don't know. And, of course, Gendry works there half the time."

"I thought he had a job with you!"

"He does. He just helps out sometimes, since his sister works there as a waitress and she's complained how it sometimes gets impossible to be everywhere that's needed. Ever since then, he jumps in whenever the crowd gets thick."

Arya stayed silent, and he looked away from the road and at her to see what she was thinking. She had a frown on her face, and all in all, looked surprised, not necessarily pleasantly.

"Does he at least get paid?"

"Not as much as the lot of them, but yeah, he gets his share."

She kept her thoughts to herself for a while, and, if he still knew her and she hadn't changed so impossibly much, he knew she would spill them out soon enough.

"It's too generous and too naïve. He could've pulled out some more for his own better, most certainly."

Jon laughed. "Oh you silly thing, not all of us do things and try to do them for ourselves. He's doing this for his sister and he doesn't care if anything comes out of it for him."

"That's bloody demented."

Jon laughed merrily and messed up Arya's hair with one hand, aiming for her head perfectly.

Not that it mattered much – Arya's hair had grown, of course, and it was one of the first things he had noticed about her when she came back. Her hair now skipped practically all the way down her back stopping an inch or two before the small of her back.

It was as wild as always, but didn't look quite as spikey. It shone like silk under the moonlight and, all in all, suited Jon's little sister perfectly.

He knew she wasn't against long hair, just like she wasn't really against dress codes and fashion and makeup. Arya actually took some pride in her hair, before she had to cut it after she got it accidentally half-cut in a fight. The boy who did it was still doing social service for bringing scissors into fight. She didn't have any typical sense of fashion, or felt burdened to be approved by the sociality. She liked wearing clothes she liked or felt comfortable or just good in. She was simple. She did things for herself, not for others.

Well, maybe she disliked dress codes a bit.

Because, why wouldn't she wear a PJ's at someone's wedding?

Oh, right, because of a dress code.

"Arya, wait."

She twirled around and approached him, seeing as he hadn't moved a foot from the car.

She pried his hands away from the car door and tried to pull him away from the car a bit.

"No, it's not that – thank you, but I'm fine, it's just…" he sighed.

She looked like she knew he what he was nervous about.

"You've always got that face right before you tell me something, something like a secret."

He grunted and kicked the dirt with his foot. "You know how Ygritte and I used to smoke behind Dragonskull, and how we even gave you a chance to try, but then we stopped, together..?"

"Yes, Jon, I remember all of the crisis you two had, and all of the places in the house you've shagged on." She looked smug when his cheeks reddened and his eyes fell to floor. "I haven't touched one of them ever since."

"Well…"

"What you mean to tell me is that you started smoking again, right?"

He looked up at her, feeling shameful, when his eyes locked on her and his heart practically stopped.

With her long, wild hair slowly swaying on her back, her body completely covered in black and leather and her face without any trace of makeup, still as sharp and strong and cold as guitar's song, Arya stood with one leg drumming in inaudible rhythm, with a cigarette between her fingers and smoke on her lips.

"We've all got some regrets, Jon." She told him threw him a pack of unopened cigarettes. "But smoking isn't one of mine."

He raised his eyebrows up at her, holding up the pack she threw him. "What's this for?"

"I smelled it on you, the smoke. And I thought you wouldn't dare bringing your own cigarettes if you were to go out with me tonight, so I had a backup."

He looked at her in disbelief, trying to calm his inner boiling of emotions which mostly screamed 'rageragerage'. Her eyes were soft, ones of melted ice, and he thought he could never feel so much compassion, love and anger toward one person in the same time.

"Come on, Jon." She softly said. "I'm twenty years old. And, so I swear on the love I bear for you, I haven't touched alcohol or cigarettes in Braavos until I was older than eighteen. Also for you."

He wanted to say something to her – to give her a piece of his mind, whether in anger, compassion, understanding – but his mind was blocked and there was no sound coming from his mouth.

When his sister pulled on his elbow again, he followed.

**GENDRY**

He saw Jon just that morning while they fixed a black Mercedes for a wealthy costumer; he saw Arya four years ago when they buried Ygritte's torn body.

And now, at almost midnight, he saw them together for the first time in four years, and felt like he hadn't seen either of them for just as long.

There was something lost in Jon after Ygritte died, but only now, with Arya on his hand, had he looked complete and calm again. And Arya, oh Arya, the woman she had grown into… Gendry wouldn't have recognized her if the woman hadn't been standing so near to Jon that the Bull could place their facial similarities into recognition.

They stepped into Dragonskull with their hands firmly clasped, like two pieces of puzzle they were; Gendry had an odd sensation one couldn't separate them with a knife in that moment.

They were almost the same height (Arya had grown noticeably in the years that passed), towering over the crowd only with their cold, grey eyes.

They both wore black, their hair similar in colour, although Arya's wild hair was longer than Jon's. Where she was all sharp cheekbones and arched, invincible bows of her eyebrows, her brother had beard covering his square jaw. The tandem stepped into the underground and brought a chill of respect and fear into the eyes of anyone near. There was something about their movements; although they both stepped through the crowd with their backs straight and head proudly put in the air, what gave them most of the power was how similarly they moved, like they never parted from each other since birth.

Gendry himself, the strong Bull, the feared, tall, broad man with a long list of interesting fights and incidents on his reputation, felt the same chill as everyone, and the intimidation the siblings spread over the place.

But then, he saw Arya. He truly saw her – he knew she was the wolf as much as he was the bull in the global mind of the society, but he was surprised to see her change over the years. She was beautiful. She was fierce. She was damn hot and Gendry hated Jeyne in that moment for trying to get his attention with her taps on his arms and giggling on his ear.

It didn't take long for Jon to notice him and direct himself and his sister toward the Bull.

They sat next to him and Jon reintroduced his best friend and sister. "Gendry, this is my sister Arya, she's been away for a while. Dunno if you remember her."

Arya laughed and grinned like a wolf, tilting her head to a side as she looked at Gendry. "Haven't changed a bit, Bull."

He hadn't known where she had gotten his nickname if she hadn't been here for so long, but he went along with it. "Can't say the same for you, wolf-girl."

She just laughed again and Jon gave Gendry a questioning, warning look.

 _Right – that was his sister_. Then he remembered how affectionate Jon was toward his sister.  _His_ little _sister._

Gendry cleared his throat and looked up at the stage, where the somewhat regular performer was singing one of her most popular songs.

He heard a snort and looked for its source only to see Arya's grimace while she watched the red Priestess. "Can't believe she's still around. And they let her sing, even worse!"

"She's not so bad." Gendry shrugged. Arya glared. Jon took a sip of his beer.

"She sounds like a dying – " she scrambled for the right word and Gendry wanted to propose the usual – cat, when she burst "- GOAT!"

Jon snorted and spilt beer he was drinking, coughing through his laughter as Gendry hit him repeatedly on the back, laughing himself.

Then Jeyne spoke up – right, Jeyne was still there on his side, still persistent in her efforts to get somewhere with Gendry.

"She's got a good pitch and people think she's hot – what more would you expect from a regular performer?"

Wrong thing to say, Gendry thought when Arya disgustingly repeated: " _Regular_?"

Jon was shaking his head, Gendry sighed and Jeyne eagerly nodded her head, like she was thrilled to enrage the dark girl.

"Ugh." Arya said and downed her beer.

Gendry watched Jon as he followed his sister's drink disappear into her body. Jon's eyes were squinted and he looked somewhere between disapproval and pride. "Slow down with that."

"It's beer, dear Jon, you should see me with a nice tequila."

It was Gendry's turn to laugh at Jon's painful grimace. Arya soon joined in and shook her head, saying she was only joking. Her brother groaned and muttered, "I don't know if I can trust you anymore.".

"'ay Gendry, wanna go dance?" Jeyne asked when the song ended.

Gendry tightened his grip on his beer and found himself staring up at cold, amused, grey eyes.

Arya's mouth quirked up in the corners and she cocked one eyebrow up, and Gendry was having a hard time deciding whether to stare at her huge, dangerous eyes or her mocking, inviting lips.

The Bull said "No." in a cold, husky voice and tugged on his beer, while Jeyne gingerly moved away from them, Jon chuckled and Arya laughed on top of her lungs.

Jon was off to the bathroom and Arya was looking at him with her eyes hazy from the alcohol, a cigarette in her hand. The waiter warned her smoking wasn't allowed inside, and she smirked and tilted her head. "Come?"

Gendry nodded and followed her lead when she jumped from the stool, walking forth without looking back for him.

"Where were you?" he asked, his words mixing with smoke.

"Braavos." She responded briskly, looking up at the sky and taking a long drag. He thought there was something weirdly attractive about the way her cheeks pulled in when she tugged on her cigarette. Her long fingers looked white in the moonlight, and her eyes were so pale they were almost white, too.

Gendry had drank a lot, more than on his usual drinking nights (which he tried to make as rare as possible), and had no restraint when he took one of her long locks between his fingers, examining it and twirling it around his fist.

"How many years?" he asked, although he already knew. Well, he knew when he was sober.

"Four." She responded. She was watching his face while he watched her hair beneath his fingers. "And I haven't had a haircut once in all those years."

He let the hair slip through his fingers. He took a long inhale of his cigarette before noting "Shows."

She chuckled. "It's quite impractical, really."

Gendry nodded and smirked. "I wonder how Jon makes it."

Arya laughed; Gendry was proud to make her laugh.

"Do you come here often?" she asked him. The cigarette had fallen from her hand and he was throwing his down, too.

He gave her a long, scrutinizing look. His voice was lower than usual when he said: "Do you plan to stay here?"

There was that twinkle of wolfish amusement in her eyes again; not a ghost of smile on her small, kissable lips, but a mocking laughter in her grey orbs. She breathed out a simple "Yes."

He nodded his head and looked up at the stars. "Good." He said. "And yes."

She was smiling when she told him it was time to go back, and when they sat next to Jon once again and she greeted her brother with a squeeze on his shoulder, she turned to Gendry and smiled again.

And he was smiling, then, and for the whole damn night.

**ARYA**

She was back to piano for the last two months since she had come back, since Sansa had her brilliant performance that bloomed over few very popular media, and since she had met Gendry again.

"You got better." Catelyn said from the door.

Arya stopped playing and retracted her hands to her lap; she only noticed her mother leaning on the doorway when she had spoken.

"I've been practising in Braavos."

"It shows." Her mother said, a soft smile on her lips. "Those melodies are new, too."

She wondered how long her mother had been watching her – she's been playing Braavos' signature, folk songs for almost two hours.

"I practiced those, too."

Catelyn nodded.

Arya waited, sitting upright and still, uncomfortable under her mother's piercing eyes. her mother was always tall and willowy, and although years made her face less outstanding and beautiful, there was something about the colour of her eyes that made them seem more beautiful than ever. It was as if all the winters her mother had lived through in her life had somehow each had an effect in those blue eyes. Arya often envied her mother and all the siblings that had her eyes, but took huge pride in her own startling, cold, Stark eyes. she might have thought the Tully's blue was a more beautiful one – but she never regretted her inheritance and loved how much of the Starks' she had in herself.

Finally, her mother sighed and parted from the wall – she stepped back a bit, still supporting herself on the door with one hand. "The Tyrells, Baratheons and uncle Edmure are coming for dinner tonight. Dress properly – and watch your behaviour. I swear, the south had made you even more of a wildling than you already were."

But the words were said in a soft, motherly tone, and Arya smiled as her mother walked away.

The grin was soon wiped off her face, as the words took place in her mind –  _dress properly_.

"Sansa!" she shouted. Then she took off to her sisters room in a bolt, running up the stairs in a fairly fast pace for her own height.

"Sansa!" she said as she jerked open her sister's door.

The perfectly symmetrical, square, lightly coloured room was also perfectly empty. The big, queenly bed in the middle was tidied up as well as the rest of the room. Arya grunted to herself and went to the window, hoisting herself up on the board. She leaned back into the glass and pulled her phone out of the pocket.

Her sister picked up after only two beeps. "Hello?" Sansa's voice was high and cheerful, like she had been laughing before answering the phone. "Arya?"

"I'm in your room – where are you?"

Sansa sighed over the line and responded in a tone Arya knew very well – the one that meant 'you're bloody irresponsible and of course you would forget everything important, while I'm perfectly scheduled and know-it-all'. "I'm out, shopping with Margaery. You wouldn't think I'd forget the big dinner tonight, would you?"

Arya grunted unintelligibly. "S'ppose I have, though."

"And you want my help?"

Oh, Sansa wouldn't be Sansa if she hadn't sounded smug saying that, would she now? "Yes, Sansa darling, I'm barely able to dress myself every day, how would you expect me to wear something our mother would approve of tonight?"

"Well,  _Arya dear_ ," Sansa sounded self-pleased. "Is it not simply remarkable that you have me to help out?"

Arya inhaled and exhaled, barely containing herself from saying something in annoyance when she would regret it later.

"Oh, don't be so grim! Come over, Margaery would be delighted to help, too, and since the two of us are already here, you won't be bothered with the long wait you usually suffer before we go anywhere, as I take a while to prepare."

There was an unsaid 'You're the one that should take the same amount of time to prepare, too, though', but Arya simply went over it and replied that she would be there in a matter of minutes. Sansa told her the mall they were in – Arya was unsurprised; even after all these years, she knew by heart all the places Sansa loved for shopping.

"On my way. Do you need anything?"

"Well, I'm sure Jon forgot his lunch pack as always, so if you would get that, we could visit him after the mission." Sansa answered. Arya was happy with her sister – Sansa wasn't always as warm toward Jon, as she didn't like his taste in personal job, girlfriend and music. But ever since Ygritte died, Arya was getting positive updates from both her older siblings on how well they started treating each other. She didn't like that it took such a terrible thing to happen for the two to start getting along, but she decided a long time ago she wouldn't bother herself with it. Jon needed everyone good enough by his side after what happened.

"Where is it?"

"He always takes it to the hallway and forgets it there, so it's probably –"

"Found it. Thanks Sans, see you." Arya hung up and popped into her martens and grabbing Jon's lunch pack.

She shouted "Mom, dad, I'm going out to meet Sansa and Margery!" and waited for her father's 'all right' before jumping out the door.

She bought the first thing they agreed on.

It was a simple, grey, knee length skirt and a black jumper with a wide cut. Arya insisted on getting Arya a proper necklace that would look 'so gorgeous!' with the clothes she was to wear that night.

It took them an hour, and although it was much longer than Arya usually spent on these 'shopping occasions', she knew it could have been much longer with Sansa, so she was mostly grateful. They had fun, though, Arya mocking the girls for their soft taste in everything, and them enjoying dressing up the cold, untouchable little Arya. All in all, Arya loved spending time with them (not that she would ever tell them) because their age was finally one in which Sansa never fought her on anything, and with the years they spent apart, they were both glad for the opportunity to hang out as sisters again.

"Thanks Marg, couldn't do it without you." Sansa hugged her friend and winked at Arya, as the object of the implied difficulty.

Margaery only laughed and hugged both of them. "I'm so glad you're back, Arya. And you two finally act like the dear sisters you are."

When Arya and Sansa both rolled their eyes, Margaery laughed again. "Bye, girls! See you tonight."

Jon's face pulled into a huge grin when he saw his sisters, and he left his friend's (Gendry's) side immediately to meet them.

"Forgot your lunch." Sansa said, and Arya handed him the bag.

Jon scowled. "Thanks, I don't know how I keep forgetting it…"

"We all know how, Snow." They all turned around to see Gendry standing close to them. "You aren't truly awake until after noon."

While Sansa laughed and Jon grunted and smiled sheepishly, Arya stared and studied Gendry's face.

The man looked back at her and something twitched in his smile – Arya wanted to know what his stupid brain was thinking at the sight of her.

"You're the one to talk." Jon said. He put one arm around Sansa who leaned into him, and tugged on Arya's long braid with his other hand. She laughed and pulled away. "Gendry here," Jon said in his tone of sweet revenge. "happens to come to work late almost every single day."

"At least when I come I work as I'm supposed to, while your lazy arse only manages to walk around and turn over everything in its way." Gendry teased back.

The two would have probably kept bickering, but Sansa cut them off and said the girls had to go get themselves prepared.

"We do not!" Arya said, scandalized. It was scarcely past noon. "It's  _dinner_ , Sansa, not lunch!"

"And you're Arya, and not  _Miss Westeros_." Sansa bit back, leaving the men guffawing in laughter and Arya squinting at her with murder in her eyes.

"Oh, I'm not going anywhere, especially after this." Arya threatened, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Suit yourself, but remember, you drove us here in my car. Margaery was my ride, but now I've got my own." Sansa pulled out her keys and clacked them in the air. She even had the wit to smirk winningly.

"Fine." Arya snarled. "I'll wait for Jon."

Jon and Gendry exchanged frightened, confused looks. Their bickering was one thing, but the threats the girls pulled of included people completely uninvolved with them.

"Only if he agrees." Sansa and Arya turned to face Jon, remarkably alike with their stubborn, killer expressions. They probably looked like they were related for the first time in their lives.

Gendry looked frightened, but Arya knew Jon wouldn't be. "As long as my life is safe, I'll agree to anything you two decide."

Sansa shot him one more glare before nodding and proudly walking away.

Arya looked after her, biting her lip. What if her sister refused to help her anymore?

She reverted her eyes to the boys in front of her and almost chocked at the sight of Gendry crossing his arms on his chest. If only he hadn't worn that short-sleeved shirt.

She willed herself to look away, feeling her blood heat up, and her chest squeeze, and she felt like she had the first time she saw him, years ago. But she wasn't a damned teenager, and she definitely wasn't going to drool after a tall, hot, black-haired man just because he was all that. And his eyes – not, she definitely wasn't going to appreciate his eyes, because they were not endless pits of blue sky and safety and depth. Arya was so not that girl – she never would be.

"I think I should probably go after her." Arya remarked. "After all, she is my only hope to get through tonight."

"What's tonight?" Gendry asked and cocked one eyebrow up.

_Oh, don't do that. Don't do that if you'd like to keep your clothes on._

Arya switched her eyes between him and Sansa's retreating form. "Uh, it's um – it's this dinner… the big dinner they call it, Sansa and Marg, I mean… ugh, she's – oh, what the hell! Slow down, Sansa!" Arya stepped back from them a bit, completely unfocused. "Jon'll tell you more, there'll be loads of people and friends and it's all a bit silly…"

"What's the occasion?"

This time it wasn't Sansa distracting her. It was Gendry and his arms –  _again_. "Nothing really, anyway I gotta run… you should come!"

Bravo, Arya. Bravo.

Realizing what she said, she ran away from them and shouted a crazy 'bye' over her shoulder. She thought she heard Jon laughing after her while Gendry asked him if she was serious.

She really wanted and didn't want to know the answer.

"Nice lad, that Gendry." Sansa remarked as she drove them home. "I met him a few times with Jon, don't know if you have. He's really nice and clever, I think."

"'s got good eyebrows." Arya mussed. She reddened as soon as she realized what she had said. Damn it!

But Sansa only laughed it off. "Oh Lord, Arya, you never change! Stop with the sarcasm, I'm only trying to talk to you."

Arya was so glad her sister was a careful driver, so she wouldn't look away from the road for a second. If she had… well, by the flush in Arya's cheeks, she would have known it wasn't sarcasm at all.

"Right." Arya tried to sound on the verge of annoyance. "Yes, of course, darling, he's very clever, and I cannot understand half the ever so smart things he'd told us!"

Sansa laughed and shook her head. "You'll see, Arya, one day even you will blush at someone like that! Just wait and see!"

And Arya couldn't help but glance at the rear view mirror; her cheeks were so red she almost believed it was from a sudden illness.


	4. A Plan, A Mustang, A Nickname

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to Harrenhal, and meet Hot Pie!

_You're the pretender,_

_What if I say I will never surrender?!_

**JON**

He barged into Sansa's room when he heard them shout at each other so loudly he was certain the glass in the room would shatter at their high pitches.

"Would you cut it out, please!" he roared as he faced them, both red in their faces.

Sansa was breathing heavily, and Arya was trembling with rage. Sansa was already all dressed up, in a fine silky dress just the colour of her eyes that were also highlighted with makeup. Arya wore shorts and a sleeveless top. Her hair was partly pulled back, with the rest of it flowing down her back in completely straight locks, her unruly curls gone from sight.

"What happened to your hair?" he blurted out when neither of the girls said anything.

"Sansa!" Arya cut off her sister as she tried explaining. "She took that bloody iron and didn't even warn me how it would look like, and now I feel… bad!"

Jon gulped and shared a look with the older sister. Sansa was biting hard on her lip, irritated, angry and completely not agreeing to whatever her sister had said.

"Well, first of all... I doubt Sansa was doing that just so she could irritate you." Jon slowly said.

Sansa nodded her head. "I thought it'd be a nice surprise!"

"It wasn't!"

Jon cut in again before the screaming repeated. "Anyway! I don't know if you've had the…  _privilege_  to see yourself in the mirror, but you do look good, Arya. Even older, even sharper than we're used to seeing you."

She was the person he loved most, and sometimes, he was certain the feeling was mutual. They knew each other better than anyone else, and if there was anything to calm his little sister's temper just then, those were the words. Not how beautiful she looked – although Jon certainly thought she did – but of how strong she looked.

Arya took a moment to huff and look uncertain. When she spoke, it was still in an angry tone, but a more forced one. Arya never would yield, and if she lost, she had to make it seem as if she was still winning.

"It was still completely wrong to change my appearance so drastically without consulting it with me!" she faced Sansa again.

Sansa maybe wasn't Jon – but she knew Arya well enough to notice this was the only way she could get out with it.

"I know, Arya, I'm really sorry… I just… I wanted you to be surprised and pleased and all those things, because if you saw yourself differently, maybe you would have noticed how beautiful you really are, and then you'd – "

"What? Stop wearing black? Stop listening to that ' _wildling music'_?" Arya cut in bitterly.

Jon cleared his throat. "She was only trying to make you feel good." He gave his favourite sister a cold glare, which she returned just as coldly. "You should learn to accept it."

This time, she was silent for an even longer period. Finally, she inhaled deeply and looked up fiercely into her sister's eyes. "I think you did a great job with my hair." It sounded like brick were being forced through Arya's throat and Jon stopped breathing in an attempt to stop the laughter he knew would come. "Would you like to help me with the makeup, too?"

Sansa was staring down at Arya like she had just seen her declare how she had always preferred Chopin to Metallica. "Yes… I'd be… honoured… to?"

Jon walked out and slammed the door before allowing himself to laugh at the painful grimace on his little sister's face when she nodded her head.

People had been trying to make Arya more of a lady, of a gentle woman her mother and sister were, and now, he felt like he had a comical part in it, too. Although, his play might've just been a parody of whatever the people did to make her surrender.

Later that night, when Arya sat next to him during the dinner, she asked him if Gendry was coming. Jon shook his head, told her the lad wasn't sure it would be all right with everyone and most of all not so proper, and he thought that Arya had had an odd, regretful expression when he said that.

Jon wasn't stupid – he knew Gendry hadn't forgotten who Arya was over the years, every now and then, he'd ask Jon how she was doing, how she felt etc. Arya wasn't a very open person, but it was obvious since their first night at Dragonskull since she came back, Arya was familiar with Gendry, too.

Now, he saw them that night – he saw how Arya sat and did nothing, gaining the attention of the man Jeyne was trying to catch for so long. Jeyne was a pretty girl, a big bosom, a big bottom, all too eager to get Gendry in her claws. But since Arya came back, Jon swore Gendry had a different type of stubbornness about when he refused Jeyne or any other girl. Jon could vouch that Gendry's eyes followed Arya more often than not, and certainly more often than Jon would like for a guy to look at his younger sister.

The worst thing was, he was beginning to think that Arya just might be on the same page as Gendry. As far as Jon knew, Arya was the only Stark that still hadn't experienced falling in love. There was a boy back at Braavos, Jaqen H'ghar she'd told him over the phone, that ran circles around her, but it turned out there wasn't anything too strong in his affections for her, since they became close friends. Jaqen H'ghar might not have gotten what he wanted, but Jon knew… if anyone could, it was Gendry.

Now, as he ate the mashed potatoes both he, Arya and Ned all loved so much, Jon kept a close eye on her.

She was staring blankly at her plate, and when Catelyn warned her she must eat, she only frowned at the potatoes and started picking at them.

Jon felt a sudden urge to smack himself, Arya and Gendry on the forehead.

"Arya, would you join me on the porch?" he asked his sister when the main course was all eaten, and there was a pause before the dessert.

"All right. Mother, may I?" she looked at Catelyn, who told them not to take long.

"I think she's doing better." Arya told him as they walked out. "I haven't seen her glare at you once!"

 _That's because she's completely avoiding looking at me. She's ignoring me completely!_  "I think you might be right. Your presence must be of a big help."

Arya snorted and laughed, leaning on the porch fence. "A big distraction, I'd say. She hasn't missed a day to come 'round and starting poking at me, asking me when would I get a job, start composing or practice more often. She's demented, that woman." She muttered the last sentence conspiringly.

Jon laughed. "She's  _your_  mother, so it doesn't come as a shock."

Arya smacked his shoulder and crossed her arms on her chest as he laughed at her angry expression.

"So, what's the occasion?" Arya asked after a minute or two, while they both leaned on the fence with their elbows, looking up at the sky. "Why did you invite me here?"

Jon mulled the words over his tongue for a bit, before settling for the softest version. "I wanted to talk to you about… I don't know, boys? Love?"

"If you really did, we could just be inside right now. There's nothing to tell, Jon, and would you really think that  _you_  out of the whole world wouldn't know if I had anything with anyone?" Arya snickered a bit, like his intention was as dumb as possible.

What could he say, though?

 _Arya, I know about Gendry_  – no.

 _Arya, I know you like Gendry_  – worse.

 _Arya, Gendry likes you_  – terrible idea.

 _Arya, I don't want you to get hurt_.

"It's just that…" Jon started again. Arya was watching him closely, her big eyes shining with the reflection of the stars above them. "I've had that… you know, and all of us have. Even Bran and even Rickon, we've all felt it. Better not to say a thing about Sansa, she was a damned rollercoaster when she was younger, but thankfully, now there's Willas…" Jon trailed off, wondering about how different two sisters could be. Sansa, a burning Sun, Arya, a dark Moon.

"Yes, there's Willas, and they've been jumping around each other for almost two years now, and as far as I know – not a hug had been a product of those years."

Jon laughed, but Arya shook her head again, looking at him with ice in her eyes. "I'm serious, Jon!  _I_  got a hug from him when I came back, I even hugged him tonight, but she just – just –  _stood_  there! Stared at him, and the worst part was that he stared right back and  _they_  –  _did_  –  _nothing_!"

Jon stuck to silence.

"I think we should help them." Arya said with determination he often feared.

"Arya, it's not our – "

"Well it should become, certainly. Would you want him to go back to Highgarden? Loras and Margaery, all right, they've both got college to attend here, Margaery has that punk of hers, and Loras wouldn't part from Renly if it was Gods that came down and demanded it." Arya sighed and grabbed at her hair, swinging it over one shoulder. She wanted to run her hands through it, but couldn't because of  _Sansa_. The same Sansa she was so worried about. And Jon knew she was right – once she mentioned the possibility of Willas leaving… "But Willas… he doesn't have to stay. He could have a nice, solid carrier in here, but back home, he could be a bloody star. I think you and I both can guess what his main reason for staying would be, and let's face it – the way it's going, he might as well just give up soon enough."

"What do you propose?" Jon asked.

"Maybe… you and I ask them both out with us, and then bail?"

"They would probably invite someone to join us, since we're not quite the closest of friends, and besides, if we bailed on them, they would just call someone else to join them."

"Right…" Arya bit down on her lip.

There was a flicker of an idea in Jon's head, but it went against everything he wanted or believed in. Sort of. "Arya, why is it that you suddenly want to help Sansa so much? You never did anything but tease her before."

Arya shrugged. "She was a girl back then. She's a woman now. And unlike those times, now she seems to be completely hopeless. Back then, she had everything and nothing. The boys, the popularity… none of the things that mattered, none of the things I wanted. But now, she's a grown up, she's truly in love, and it's a mature type of love, and I really want her to be happy, you know? This is right, her and Willas, but they really need a strong push."

"How  _do you_  know if that's true, mature love?" Jon asked her, truly interested.

His sister shrugged again and smiled softly. "I might not have it. I might not ever have it. But I don't think anyone can miss the way they look at each other, how she blushes, and how he's always there, close to her, how they gravitate around each other… don't  _you_  see it, Jon?"

He smiled back at her and pushed a lonely lock of hair behind her ear. "I do, Arya."

She bit down on her lip again, like she wanted to say something. Arya wasn't a type of person to hold things back. "You had that, didn't you?" she blurted out and he froze. "You had that, with Ygritte."

It took him a while to answer. "Approximately, yes. I loved Ygritte, and she loved me back. We were… so, so in love." He sighed. "But I don't think it was that type of love, you know? The gentle one. I think it was more of a rough one. She pushed me to my boundaries, and I pushed back. We came from different worlds, and we really made it hard for each other, but that made  _us_  stronger."

Arya smiled. "You're a weirdo, Jon Snow, but someone's gonna love you again."

He laughed and hugged her close to his chest, kissing the top of her head. "I've got you, so I need no one."

Her response was muffled into his chest. " _You'll need someone when you choke me to death_!"

"I have a plan, though." He said as he loosened his arms a bit, still not letting her go. He might just become a snuggly bear, but he liked how he felt when he hugged Arya. She was still small, she still fit in his arms the same way she did when she was younger, and he had a feeling his little sister was back when she clutched his shirt firmly.

"What plan?"

"About Sansa and Willas."

She looked up at him with big eyes. "You do?"

"I do."

"Well spit it out!"

He sighed. "I need you to tell me something first, though."

"What?" Arya frowned. "You make no sense, Jon Snow!"

"I've been told." He snorted. Ygritte's laughing face held his thoughts for a moment before he shrugged it off. "Anyway…"

She squinted at him, and he decided to tighten his embrace just so she wouldn't be able to stare while he tried to tell her (or kick him when he did). "I think there's something between you and Gendry."

He heard her muffle a curse into his shirt and bury herself deeper into his arms.

Well, there was something he didn't expect. He froze as she buried her head into the crook of his neck. Her hands still held the fabric of his shirt, pulling herself fiercely against him. "Arya?" he asked softly. He ran his hands soothingly over her back. "You all right?"

" _No_." she muffled. " _Sansa thinks so, too_."

"And what's so bad about that?"  _Gendry's a good boy_ , he wanted to say, but he didn't know if Arya wanted him to be hers. He didn't know what she wanted. And he didn't know if he could stand the thought of his Arya… _mingling_  with a boy.

" _I don't know! I don't want to trust you, and I don't know what I want_!"

Well… obviously, there was no helping the two of them.

She finally pulled away from him, leaning against the fence, her arms crossed on her chest. She looked like there was a storm inside her, her whole face crumpled with trouble, her eyes a stormy grey. "I don't know him."

"You've been going out with us for months."

"That's not nearly enough!" she growled.

Jon sighed. "Do you like him?"

Arya stared at her brother for what seemed like ages, her eyes lost and confused and helpless. "I think about him a lot. And when he says something stupid, I feel weird."

"What do you mean by weird?" Jon asked.

"Well… like there's bricks in my stomach… and they're tumbling… kind of like that time when I accidentally drank a bottle of vodka."

"That wasn't completely an accident." Jon frowned. "And you had to go to the hospital in the emergency car."

"Not my point – "

"But if you feel like dying when he's there, I'd say that's pretty serious…" he joked.

"Jon!" she sighed in frustration and stomped her foot on the ground. "Stop it! I'm not Sansa!"

Oh!

So that was the problem!

"Arya, I never said you were. Trust me, you don't act like it, and if you let him know you do like him, it wouldn't make you look or act like her. Gendry wouldn't act toward you like guys did toward Sansa. He knows who you are."

She was probably going to bite off her lip. "You don't think I'm lame like Sansa?"

He laughed and put his hands on her shoulders. "No, I don't. And it's a bit rude saying she's lame."

"But she was."

"Yeah, well," Jon tsked his tongue. "just a tad. And after all, you have your own level of lameness when it comes to affection."

Arya smiled and hugged him again. "Love makes people lame and stupid." She said.

"It does leave a certain effect." Jon nodded, still smiling. "Good thing you only  _like_  him, then."

"It takes over 4 months to say you're in love with someone! Science proved it! And I will not like him for nearly as long."

Jon thought it wouldn't be wise to tell her that she's known him over four years. Science wasn't of much help in her case.

"But how does this have anything to do with Sansa and Willas situation?" she asked him.

Jon started pacing over the porch. It was one thing making Arya admit her affection, but a completely different thing to make her do anything about it. Especially when she seemed to want to get rid of it the soon she could.

"I was thinking… it's hard to make them go out with us, only, but maybe, if there was another couple they would go out with…"

"Jon, are you serious? Are you seriously proposing that I go to a double date with Sansa Stark? Especially when taken that Gendry bloody Waters would be my date? How would that look like?"

"A war, probably." Jon said. "And a nice chance to make her all frustrated and flustered and when she leaves in distress, like a proper damsel would…"

"Then there comes her knight." Arya finished for him. " _Damn_."

A devilish grin broke on Jon's face. "I'm good."

Arya looked deep in thought. No, she actually looked like she was hurting. "You're an idiot. A bloody idiot if you think I'd say yes. And after all, that would mean I'm supposed to ask Gendry to go out with  _not only me_ , but half of the bad things in this family."

"Well, I've got an idea about, too…" Jon admitted guiltily. He went to sit on the bench and asked her to join him.

"How do you come up with this stuff?" she asked when she sat down.

"Imagination. Experience. Nature. I don't know." He shrugged. "I thought you could ask him for a favour. Like, tell him it's pretending. Tell him you need a big favour. Tell him about Sansa and Willas. Explain the plan to him."

"And why wouldn't I just ask someone who I'm certain I feel like friends?" Arya asked pointedly.

"Because you like Gendry."

"That really makes  _no sense_ , Jon!"

"Wait!" he stopped her from getting up. "I'll explain!"

She glared at him. He sighed. "I've already told you the plan. Sansa would leave, and Willas would go after her. Which would – "

"Leave the two of us alone." Arya finished coldly. "I still might not want him."

Jon shrugged. "It's just an option. You decide."

But he knew Arya could never hold back. She always ran for what she wanted. And even though she might have been refusing to admit it, whether to him or to herself, he knew she wanted Gendry.

It pained him to practically set his little sister up with his best friend, but he needed her back. He needed his Arya back, because she wasn't who she used to be ever since she came back. There was a part of her missing, and it was the child in her that should have always stayed as a part of her.

Maybe a little bit of a fight could break it through.

"I'm in." she finally said.

Arya stood up and straighten her skirt, looking more like she wanted to rip it apart. Then she turned to face Jon again. "I'll go hunt that stupid Bull."

Jon cringed. "I don't want you to murder my best friend, Arya."

She shrugged as she walked back toward the house. "I am not to be held for any unpleasant accidents."

Jon rolled his eyes and followed her. "You know, if he refuses you, you wouldn't have to keep the murder secret."

"I know." She laughed. "You'd help."

As would their father, Robb, Bran, Rickon, Sansa, Catelyn, and half of their family friends. Well, Loras might want to stand away. He'd probably break a nail or something.

**GENDRY**

Gendry had always been a good mechanic.

Always.

And it's not really that light bulbs were a part of his job, but… light bulbs were the most important thing in a house, for without them, you couldn't even see what the house had. Light. Light bulbs gave you light.

And Gendry couldn't swirl  _one_  into place.

He tried being gentle and patient, but his hands were too big for the small bulb and his fingers too calloused to feel the pressure before it broke inside his fist. He wasn't aware of how firm his hold on the little thing was – it just, suddenly, burst.

"By the old Gods and the new – what in the seven hells happened to you?"

It wasn't his favourite to be seen in times of self-destruction and hatred. He didn't want her to be there during one of his crisis.

"I tried to change a light bulb." He said, feeling stupid, still at the sink, trying to pick out the rest of the glass in his hand. It was bleeding beautifully. "Stupid, right?"

He didn't hear her steps, but she was suddenly there beside him. She looked at his trembling fingers for a moment before sighing and trying to take his hands in hers.

"No, I can do it –"

"You can't. You'll only push the bits deeper in. And we don't want that." Her grip was strong and he really couldn't say anything with the way his pain seemed to lessen at the contact of her skin.

"Why are you here?" in the garage – it made no sense. Jon never worked down here, and Arya never really came only to see Gendry.

"I…" she struggled a bit, but her hands never wavered. She was almost done, but he really didn't want her to stop touching him. Maybe he could break another bulb… No, she's probably scream and refuse to help again and then she'd run off. "I came to talk to you about something. But it can wait. Let's wrap you up, first."

Gendry nodded stupidly. She wanted to talk to him. Arya wanted to talk to him.

As she explored his hands to see if there was any glass she had missed, he looked at her. Really looked at her.

Yes, she looked different that day, her hair was straight and looked even longer, her face was almost completely drained of colour, her lips a tight line, her eyes dark and shimmering dangerously.

But who was he looking at? What was she for him? She was, of course, the source of his internal struggle for a while now, but she was also becoming his friend. And those were rare.

But all the same… he didn't want Arya Stark to be his friend. He wanted her more than that – he wanted her eyes to form a specific glow only for him, he wanted her hands to get used to holding his, he wanted her lips to be only his to kiss and her nights only his to share.

He barely noticed when she set him down on a work bench, sitting beside him and starting to clean and wipe and wrap his hands. "I don't feel like talking, but let's talk."

"About that reason you came here?" he wondered.

"No." she looked up at him for a moment and smirked before returning to his wounds. "Just talk. You're easy to talk to."

"Why, thank you, milady." Gendry came to calling her milady after he found out about her roots and about the proper behaviour of all the females within her family tree. Except her, of course. Arya was always the exception.

"Shut up." She laughed. She laughed a lot when it was only the two of them. When Jon was there, she always joined him in mocking Gendry or took it all for herself. But when they were alone… which wasn't very often, though - then she just forgot about it all. "You're in my hands. Better behave."

"Of course, please do continue tending to my wounds." Gendry imitated the high-class accent. Comically. "I ought to be helped, and you ought to help me."

Arya laughed and laughed and he cherished the moment. He wanted her laughter to keep ringing through his ears.

It was a bad day for him.

"Done!" she said and smiled. She let his hands fall from hers. "Hopefully, my help would be of help, sir." She told him, mimicking the accent, herself.

"You yourself are always of help." He was laughing and the words were unexpected for both of them, and as he expected for her to bolt for the doors (the Arya which he came to know from Jon's stories would do just that, but that Arya was also a child), she hadn't moved one bit.

And then she told him about a song and they pretended nothing happened.

When she told him about the 'Sansa-Willas plan', he was stunned. He was shocked. He didn't know what to think of the plan.

"Couldn't you ask someone else?" he blurted out, and thought there was something amiss in her eyes. "I mean, why me?"

That almost helped, but Arya still held herself stiffly and spoke with urgency and coldness. He thought he knew her well enough to know that the ice in her voice was just a mask for the fear.

Arya Stark was vulnerable, and it was him that could take that to change, for better or worse.

"You made most sense. Jon and I both trust you, Sansa knows me and she knows you, and she knows we're kind of alike, and if she believed I had a boyfriend, it had to be someone like you…"

"You're basically saying I'm your type?" he smirked.

"No." she cut him off. "I'm saying Sansa thinks you're my type."

"Well… that's a bit harsh."

"I'm here to help  _her_ , Gendry!" she rose up to her feet. "I'm not here looking for a 'thing' or something like that – I think you're decent enough, but there's not a single reason why I'd ask something of you in that manner!"

"Really now?" he rose up, too. There was something boiling inside him, making him say things he usually wouldn't. "Like that night when you came back? When you led me on? Because I remember everything you said or replied to me – and it doesn't fit in to what you just said!"

"That was before!" she shouted, her cheeks a flaming red, her eyes too dark to stand. He couldn't stand away from her.

"Before  _what_  exactly, Arya? What happened in between? Came to know me? Came to see how stupid I really am? Or how poor?" he was playing it dirty, he knew that. But he had questions and fears and her refusal wasn't helping. Especially since it wasn't even a direct refusal.

"Don't you ever say anything like that, stupid!" she was furious, now. "How could you ever think of me like that?! I would never judge anyone based on  _that_  and you know it!"

"So  _what_? So what then, huh? What changed, Arya?" he growled. She was standing right there – just an inch or two between them, her eyes fearless, sharp, her breathing hard, her lips quivering a bit – with anger or annoyance, he didn't know.

"Nothing." She said. "Nothing changed."

He stood there, watching her watching him. He tried to read into her eyes, but couldn't. Even though she was letting him, he knew she was. He just couldn't see if it was annoyance or desire, anger or thirst, fear or affection…

He had to experiment.

Arya's lips parted when his hand gingerly touched the skin of her neck. His thumb grazed her jaw, and his palm splayed firmly on her skin. She hadn't flinched, moved back or said anything. She stood there, proudly, and waited. She was waiting for him.

He felt his blood boil and thump through his veins as she leaned forward just one bit, and he leaned in, too, almost taking hold of her, almost kissing her, almost having her…

"Who the hell are you?"

**ARYA**

He was big and fat and had a pig like face. He also had that sort of a misty reflection you saw when you met a person you already knew.

"Wait, I know you…" his face scrunched in thought, and when he flashed a mean glare, she suddenly remembered.

"Hot Pie, seriously?" Gendry grunted from behind her. When the boy interrupted their little moment, they both flinched away from each other and he stood behind her and puffed out in annoyance.

"You're the guy that meant to rob me all those years ago!" Arya pointed a finger at the boy. "At King's Landing!"

" _No._ ," he shook his head strongly. "You're the underage girl that almost killed me!"

Arya stood and stared at him and he stared right back at her.

Gendry sighed loudly. "And I'm the guy that shooed you away."

"No, you're Gendry." Arya and Hot Pie said in unison.

She felt her chest vibrate with stifled laughter a second before Hot Pie burst in laughter and hiccups. Then she let herself laugh, too, especially when she turned around to find Gendry staring at the two of them with his eyebrows low above his eyes, annoyed and put off.

"I think I won't try to rob you again." Hot Pie said as his laughter subsided.

"And I just might not kill you." Arya agreed.

"I'm Hot Pie." One fat hand grabbed hold of Arya's.

"I'm Arya."

Gendry mumbled something to himself, something that sounded an awful lot like 'arsehole', 'idiot', 'bloody hell' and 'stupidstupidstupid'.

"So, you hitting it off with the Bull?" Hot Pie nodded to Gendry as the taller man moved to the sink, cleaning up the shattered glass.

"No." Arya rolled her eyes and tried to put back the scenes and words from just minutes ago. "I'm not  _hitting it off_  with anyone."

"That's the spirit." Hot Pie nodded. He then proceeded past her to stand next to Gendry. "You haven't been to Harrenhal in a while."

"Been busy."

"Bollocks. Jeyne's been coming every day."

Gendry turned around to shoot Hot Pie a freezing glare. "I've been  _busy_." He growled.

Arya watched them from the side with curiosity, jerking her head to a side. "Who's Jeyne?"

While Gendry said "No one!", Hot Pie blurted out "She's really into Gendry."

"Hmh." Arya hummed, deep in thought. Her eyes plopped to the ground, and she squinted, trying to divulge whether she was feeling jealousy, annoyance or anger. But she only felt a pinch of something bitter in her chest, only a taste of certain negativity. When she looked back up again, Gendry was staring at her intently, his blue eyes digging into her skin and flesh and bone. She swallowed the lump in her throat. While this maniacal, lusty girl didn't raise much of an emotion in her chest, the way Gendry's jaw worked as his unblinking eyes tore into her, well, that look certainly made her chest tighten and her blood boil… she could easily understand the object of Jeyne's fascination being Gendry.

Gendry's expression hardened and he set his jaw once again (which completely set off Arya's composure) and he looked away from her, clumsily dropping the glass into the trash with his long, damaged fingers.

"I don't suppose you're interested, then?" Hot Pie asked Gendry. He only grunted and turned on the water in the sink, washing of the remainders of the dried blood on his hands.

Arya shuffled on her feet, replacing the weight of her body on the other leg, and bit into her lip. Her hands fidgeted with the hem of her tank top, and her thought worked out what exactly was the cause of her distress.

Probably, much like poor Jeyne, lust.

It was a relatively hard job, distracting herself from dirty thoughts and appreciating the way Gendry's body looked when he leaned over, or stretched out, or simply stood there like some majestic, firm statue with one sole goal – to make anyone watching him swoon.

And how he kept shooting everything dark glares or mocking, smug smirks, made him all more delicious. And there was the part where his jaw just couldn't stay on being so squared and sharp and manly, but had to also be the part of him that he kept clenching and Arya's mind kept wandering on the matter of how she could enjoy pressing her hands over his jaw as he kissed her roughly, deeply, but also only in her imagination…

She sighed. Hot Pie was trying to pull something more than grumbles from Gendry on the matter of this Jeyne lass. And Arya was deep in thought.

There was more to Gendry than just looks, of course. If he hadn't been more, she would've just glanced over him the first time she saw him, and wouldn't pay further attention to him. As rare as they were, attractive guys weren't as rare as, say, smart ones. And Gendry… he seemed to be both.

There was the time when she practically spent all day with him and Jon while they were making reports and whatnot, and she was lulling off into sleep, napping on the chair beside them, when she noticed how Jon relied on Gendry's mathematics skills. Jon would number all the money they got from numerous payments, and Gendry would then do all the calculations in his head, taking him about a moment or two. While Arya tried matching his pace, she only got to one quarter of the equation while the man already blurted out the right answer (she knew it was right because she took a calculator in her hands the next time Jon started reciting numbers).

But also, there was his wit. Sometimes, he just kept silent during the whole conversations, like that one time Sansa, Margery and Arya visited him and Jon at the office, and Gendry only listened to the older two girls' complaining over their part time job at theatre. Afterward, he offered them his advice of parting the tasks, which was as clever as it was the most obvious solution, which no one came to remember. Of course, when they started talking amongst themselves, Gendry turned to Arya with a bored sigh and a shake of head. She only shrugged her shoulders, a mute message that that was what Arya went through every day. He then saved her from the girls' company, telling them they needed extra help with car stuff. Neither Margery nor Sansa wanted to help with that (or knew how to).

So yes, Gendry was plenty of help.

"Would you care for joining us at Harrenhal, Arry?"

"'s Arya." Gendry muttered, but she only shrugged.

"Why not?"

"I haven't said I'd go, Hot Pie…" Gendry complained.

"Wolfie here just said she'd go. You can't leave her with a stranger, after all."

Arya snorted, but it seemed to be enough for Gendry to make a positive decision.

"Why'd he call me Wolfie?" she muttered to Gendry while they walked behind Hot Pie, going for the fat boy's car.

"Everyone has a nickname. He's Hot Pie, I'm Bull, and it's quite obvious you're kind of wolfish… after all, even Hot Pie must've heard o' your she-wolf nickname. Dunno anyone who hasn't."

"She-wolf?" Arya cocked up one eyebrow.

Gendry shrugged and grinned. "Must say it sort of suits you."

"You lot are demented." She muttered and he laughed, throwing one arm over her shoulders, crashing her into him. "Let me go, you stupid bull!"

He laughed again before letting her free from his hold. Maybe, but only maybe, she couldn't focus onto anything else but the feeling of his muscled hands around her, so she asked to be let go of.

"Ever been to Harrenhal, Wolfie?" Hot Pie glanced over his shoulder.

"No… Jon never mentioned the place."

Gendry sighed. "Jon doesn't go there much. He went a couple of times with Ygritte and later us, but it's not much of his place."

"Why?" she frowned. "What's it like?"

"Here we are!" Hot Pie went to the car parked by the side of the road, slipping into the driver seat.

Arya whistled. "Hell have mercy!"

"D'you recognize this one?" Gendry fondly tapped the hood of the car, stroking its shiny black surface longingly. "I repaired it. It was a piece of junk when we got It first, took me years, with Jon's help of course, to bring it back to life. Now she's a beauty, but then Hot Pie's birthday came and we knew how much he loved the bloody car… and after all, it's not only his, really. Lommy and me, we both use it sometime."

He looked over at Arya, who wasn't much of a ca expert when it came to sorts, but certainly knew this one.

"Who the hell left a gorgeous Mustang for trash?"

"Wasn't anything  _but_  trash, lemme tell you, when it came to us.  _Barely_  recognizable. I wouldn't have noticed what it was, had it not been for the Bull over here. He almost had a stroke, the fool." Hot Pie said, leaning through the open window.

Once inside, Gendry was in the backseat, as he told her she had the honour of trying out the brilliance of his work first hand… or, well, front seat.

And yes, it was amazing. The car purred like a mighty beast, had no flaws in the engine, and the seats were perfect leather you could melt into for an eternity.

And when Gendry put his head on top of her seat, talking and joking with her about the car, Hot Pie, and everything else in the world, she felt freer and happier than ever in her life. It was pure bliss, with their faces close, with his breath tickling her neck, his damned delicious smell of leather, blood and something quite fresh. His voice was low and husky and sent constant shivers down her spine, like the few times his lips brushed her ear when Hot Pie made an unexpected turn. She especially loved it how when she mocked him about his love for cars being more than one in anything else, he pulled mockingly at her hair, flipping it over the seat and tugging. And then, when she mock-apologized, he kept hold of her hair and ran his fingers through it.

Arya hated when someone touched her hair. And, while she made a rude gesture at him when he started combing through it, she didn't move away one bit. Gendry's presence was a phenomenon; his words a rollercoaster she's ride on forever, his touch a drug she wouldn't mind being addicted on.

**JON**

"That's messed up, Jon."

Sansa's tone was accusatory. But also scared, Jon knew. His plan put her complexes to work and her role in it would be truly terrifying.

"It's for  _Arya_. You know she could never come to do anything about it." He begged.

Sansa tapped her short nails on the table between them. Arya had a phase where she kept the nails on one hand long, to make it easier to play the guitar, but Sansa's talent presented itself purely through piano, for which she needed short nails. And also singing, but that was irrelevant in the nails area.

She sighed and frowned. "Do you think it'd go along the plan?"

"You fear rejection?"

Sansa only glared.

"Yes, it'll be all right. You'll be fine, everything will be fine!"

He was awarded with an honest smile, and a shy twinkle in her clear blue eyes. "Oh, I do hope so!"

Jon smiled affectionately and put his hand over hers. "You're a strong little thing, Sans. You'll do just fine."

"I'm sort of more afraid of Arya finding out about this plan of yours than any part of my role in it…" she mussed.

"She won't find out. I'll make sure of it."

"Good." She sighed again, and Jon tightened his hold on her hand reassuringly. "That's good."

Jon was in the middle of practising out a new thing on his guitar when his phone rang, Foo Fighters, his newest obsession, blasting through his room before he answered the bloody thing.

" _Jon!_ " It was Arya. Of course it was.

The memory of his newest plan involving her happiness flashed through his mind before he spoke.

"Everything all right?"

"' _s all great, I was just wondering if you'd like to join Gendry, Hot Pie and me at Harrenhal._ " She said cheerfully. Now it was the memory of him and Ygritte laughing and fooling around at Harrenhal. There was just a small pang of nostalgia before he pushed the thought away.

"What are  _you_  doing there?" He was genuinely surprised to hear of Arya in his friends' company.

" _Oh, just join us! We're simply hanging around, but it'd be delightful to have you here, too_!" he heard her laughter and Gendry's voice somewhere near her. " _Bull says hi! Hot Pie, too_!"

Jon sighed. "I was in the middle of…"

"- _something that would be there when you come back home. On your feet, lad, enjoy a bit_!" Hot Pie's voice rang through and Jon noted a drunk sound. He was definitely going. Arya barely knew the guy.

"I'll be there in fifteen."

Harrenhal was a sort of a relaxing, old place. It was a coffee place, a bar, a restaurant all at once. A three-walls huge room with a terrace with tables spread all over, and a stream in vision. It was just outside the suburbia, surrounded with green and forest.

Inside the three walls, there were also two halls separated by never closed doors, inside which were dancing floors and  _really_  old jukeboxes and flippers and other gamer things.

The music wasn't too loud, and the workers were scary in looks but kind in hearts. Old Thoros, the guy that took over the last owner when he passed away, was a fellow who wore black leather only, had a huge scar on his face and a huge smile with a half of one tooth missing. He also played in the band that sometimes played at Dragonskull, but mostly reserved their music for nights at Harrenhal.

Lem, only a year or two Thoros' junior, played at Harrenhal almost daily, for the whole day and whole night. He sometimes ever improvised his songs, like the time Ygritte and Jon spent more than three hours there, and Lem came up with a song for them.

 _A boy made more for a gown,_  
Made his woman a kingly crown,  
She wore it proudly all around,  
Made the boy follow her up and down!

 _She'd put a smack across his face,_  
He'd plant a kiss over her grimace,  
She'd laugh at him and yell and shout,  
But he'd get it his way once he put on a pout!

But the first week after her death, when Jon came around with Gendry, Lem gave him a friendly hug and played cheer, but easy and slow, spirit lifting songs.

Sighing, Jon made his way toward the back of the building, not wanting to go through it just to get to the field with tables.

Sure enough, there were the three of them, on the outskirt of the place, laughing and talking, and Jon thought it was the first time he saw Arya look plainly happy, with no other emotion on her sharp face.

No, he though, he wasn't right. There was another emotion quickly passing and burning through her eyes whenever Gendry leaned over to her to point something out or simply share an intimate gesture.

His own best friend and his own dearest sibling. Mingling around. Wasn't that just fabulous?

When he sat next to Arya, with Gendry and Hot Pie on the other side of the table, he counted 10 empty beer bottles in the middle of the table. Hot Pie was flushed and slurring over his words, Gendry only a bit more relaxed, but Arya seemed a different person. He supposed it wasn't the alcohol, but the atmosphere, too, but her shoulders were relaxed, her face unguarded, her laughter melodic and her lines impulsive.

"Lem sang me a song!" she told him.

"He tends to do that a lot." Jon nodded. "What was it about?"

Arya's face scrunched in thought. "Something about a wolf on loose and being silly and all."

"At least he didn't sing you a love song yet."

She made a grimace. "He's a bit too old to fancy me, stupid!"

The rest of them at the table laughed at her, and Gendry pointed out that wasn't what Jon was implying.

"Lem tends to play matchmaker. Whenever he sees two people at a table, he'll make a silly song about them."

Jon shrugged. "The one about Ygritte and me was pretty funny, really."

"You never told me about that!" Arya smacked Jon on the shoulder.

He apologized and they went on rambling about all the songs Lem had been singing.

There was a moment, though, when Gendry and Arya started jumping into each other's sentences, bickering and whatnot, when Jon noticed how intense Gendry's stare truly was. His smile was plastered on his face and couldn't be even a little moved, and his eyes completely pulled Arya in. Her own stare wasn't any better, either. She couldn't look away for a second.

Jon wondered if they were even aware of it, as Hot Pie and himself slowly got pushed out of the conversation.

It took Jon a few moments to push away the instinctive anger. This was normal. This was Gendry. This was better than any other option for Arya.

Hopefully.

"But if the chicken was first, it's be unnatural! The egg is smaller and just makes more sense!"

Gendry shook his head. "Where did the egg come from? Come on!"

They've been rambling about ckickens for over a half an hour, but even before that, most of Jon's day was spent in mutely observing his sister and his best friend drink and get drunk until they held nothing back – which, in their case, meant rambling about most weird things.

"Chickens are actually one of the closest living relatives to dinosaurs. Along with goats, I think." Hot Pie mussed.

Gendry and Arya looked at him wearily.

"We're not taking in the scientific opinions." Arya told him.

"Yeah, we're talking simply in chickens and eggs. What was first. It's a discussion that has no relation to dinosaurs." Gendry confirmed.

"But –"

"-D'you think if chickens had an additional wing on their butt they could really fly?" Arya turned back to Gendry. The number of beers in front of them had been multiplied, Jon noticed.

Gendry looked deep in thought. "I don't think so, because it'd be hardly aerodynamic. If you made it more of a cape around a chicken's body, though…"

"That's weird. It'd be like a chicken batman. Superhero chicken. Chicken hero." Arya rambled.

"A Cheero."

"Cheerio. God, I hate those."

"I don't fancy them either, but I like the honey bit. Honey's brilliant." Gendry said, staring out into the night blankly.

"I prefer spicy rather than sweet." Arya snorted.

"I'm not saying I don't, I'm just stating my opinion about honey."

"And I'm unagreeing."

"That's not a word."

"Oh, it is!"

"Impossible!"

"Your intelligence is impossible, if existing at all!"

Jon sighed.

If they ever got together, Jon hoped Arya and Gendry wouldn't endanger the world by producing any offspring.

They were weird enough on their own, Gods may not know what would happen if their genes entwined.


	5. Wild Music And The Beautiful Angie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon's plan (that no one really gets but him) finally gets done. Sansa and Willas just might be crossing the line (bloody finally) and Arya and Gendry just might end up holding hands. Spoilers!

_Nothin' to do no way to go home  
I wanna be sedated!_

_3 months later_

**ARYA**

"Shouldn't you be practising?"

Arya groaned and pulled the covers up over her face.

It was just like Catelyn to march into her room at dawn and demand that she started work already.

"I am." Arya muffled from inside the depths of her bed. "A very special practice. You do it through your sleep, you see."

"Don't you give me that, young lady! Sarcasm is not much appreciated in this house!"

"And yet Gods gave you me as a daughter. The biggest irony, innit?" Arya groaned and jerked up into a sitting position. Keeping her eyes tightly shut, she yawned and stretched her arms behind her head. "Here, I'm up and awake at that, too."

She heard her mother groan something in displeasure before walking out, telling her breakfast was being served in five.

Arya sighed and squinted. Morning was a bit lighter than usual – seemed there were no clouds in the sky that day. She looked through the open window – blue sky and the blooming field fell into her vision. She sighed and fell backwards into her pillows.

"Bloody great."

As she skipped into the kitchen, shaking her head in rhythm while singing a rather old song, she noticed Catelyn was glaring at her, and Sansa looked a little uneasy with the obvious tension and negativity their mother provided.

" _I wake up in the morning and I feel like a king"_  Arya sang and sat down across Sansa and Bran, next to Rickon. Catelyn was standing still in her spot above the table, shooting daggers at Arya. Not that she cared. " _Make love not work I can do anything -_  
Can rule my own world and never have to listen  
I'm living like there's no tomorrow  
You know there really isn't!"

She took a bagel and plopped a generous amount of marmalade over it. Biting into it, she sang on: "'Cause I said so!"

"Arya!" Catelyn hissed, gripping the back of the chair she was standing above tightly with her slim fists. Her youngest daughter looked up at her with innocent eyes. "That is not the type of music we like to hear in this house! And hearing it does not have a good influence on your brothers and sister!"

Arya shrugged. "They're all grown up, even Rick is close to his manhood." She grinned and winked at her youngest sibling, who gave back a wild grin. "Besides, I'm not making you listen." She bit again into her bagel and muttered " _'Cause I said so_!"

"Young lady, you will not… make those sounds in front of your family! I want you to go straight up to the piano room after breakfast, and I shall come and join you to listen to a couple of our favourite songs." Her mother was breathing heavily, but Arya wasn't worried much. She was a grown up. Her mother had no control over her life.

"' _Cause I said so_!" Rickon sang to her right and Arya looked up at him with surprise. He smiled innocently. Catelyn took a sharp inhale.

"No more!" she almost screamed, her face matching the colour of her hair. "I will listen to this –  _no more_!"

"And  _I_  will play my favourite music, because  _our favourite_  does  _not_  exist. Our tastes are not even remotely similar, mother, and I would not play something against my will." Arya calmly replied and popped the rest of her bagel in her mouth. She made a pleased hum in the back of her throat, and stood up, carrying her plate over to the sink. She felt her mother's rage even before Catelyn started shouting.

"That is no way to talk to your mother!" she fumed. "And what you call music is a bad excuse for sounds that do not belong to real melodies the way they should be! You will pay attention to what I tell you, and you will not –  _where are you going_?!"

Arya twirled around to face Catelyn when she was already at the doorway. "I am going to the piano room!" she said coldly, sharply, making her mother flinch. "And I am going to play music."

And with that, she spun around once again and left the rest of her family in complete, mute shock.

"Did she come see you while you were playing?"

Arya snorted and lay back down on the wooden bench. The garage was oddly silent for a Tuesday morning. She guessed the rest of the workers were out on break. "Oh please – I never went to the piano room. I knew she'd come, and I didn't want to ruin such a nice day for myself."

When Gendry didn't answer immediately, she moved her head to look at him, where he propped himself on the open hood of a car he was working on. His short sleeved T-shirt almost completely black, much like the rest of his skin. Even his forehead and cheeks had dark smudges. What interested Arya the most were his long, muscled hands, though.

He was frowning. "She's your mother, Wolfie. Maybe you were a bit too sharp with her."

Arya sighed and moved up a bit, leaning onto her elbows behind her back. Half-sitting, she shook her head. "She's my mother, and by that, she's supposed to be supportive of how I want to spend my life. To insult what I love most is… just…" she knew not how to finish.

"You should talk to her. Really talk to her, try explaining what you really want and appreciate."

 _Currently,_  Arya thought,  _that would be you_.

"I tried, Bull. I really have. She used to think it was just a phase. A crazy period of my teen years. Then she got angrier and angrier, and now… we rarely speak at all." Arya admitted, remorse in her voice. "We're distant. She keeps cold and away, only talking to me formally, telling me when to come to dinner, that I should practice more, that I should look for a real job finally…"

Gendry pushed himself off the car, throwing the rag in his hands in through the front door window.

"And your dad?" he asked, coming to sit down on the floor in front of her. She looked down at him, barely focusing.

"He's a bit better. I think he actually like the Beatles. Maybe even more than just them. I think he's actually fond of this sort of music we like." She sighed and threw back her head, staring up into the ceiling. "But he'd never say it. He loves his wife too much to protest."

She felt Gendry's hand pull on the braid, tugging her head around to look at him. His big eyes watched her steadily, not revealing much, just looking. There was an almost cold look to the way his eyes bore into hers. "Then don't complain. If you don't see a solution to this, then simply do it your way. Do your thing, make your own money, move away and enjoy life as you want it."

Arya felt the beginning of a smile tug on the corners of her lips. "Now, that I could manage."

After a long minute, his icy stare melted a bit, and he returned her grin with his own, matching one.

"Before you do, you're going to help me pull apart that car." He whispered to her with a devilish glint in his eyes.

"You're the worst!" she screamed as he pulled her up to her feet and laughed. "Stupid Bull!"

"Crazy wolf!" he snapped back and pushed her in front of him, toward the car.

_6 months later_

**SANSA**

Almost a half a year after Catelyn and Arya's first real fight, and a month after their last, when air seemed to clear out a bit, it was time for operation "A&G" to start.

It was five in the afternoon, and Sansa was so nervous she couldn't stop shaking.

"You're going to be fine, silly!" Jon told her, holding one hand on her shoulder. He stared down at her with big, loving eyes. "Everything's going to be just fine!"

Sansa groaned and shook her hands before nodding. "For Arya." She said. It had been her mantra for the past several weeks.

Jon nodded, but she thought he looked a bit guilty. Was there something she didn't know?

But it was too late, because she heard a doorbell and squeaked. "That must be Margaery! She promised to help me get ready – and try to get Arya to get ready, too!"

Jon nodded and headed to the door of Sansa's room. "I'll open it." He gave her a small smile. "I wish you all the luck in the world."

When Margaery came, the nervousness was almost completely replaced with excitement.

Margaery said: "I've got the best idea for your hair!", and Sansa was eager to get on with the job.

**ARYA**

"I don't think I can do this!" she told Jon as she paced around her room, grabbing onto her hair and pulling on it with her fists. "This is so not good!"

"It's going to be fine!" he said exasperatedly. "Sansa is happier than ever, nervous and all, but she can do this, and if she can, it's because she's certain she'd have your support all night long. So you have to be there, for her!"

Arya made a funny noise and plopped down to the foot of her bed, placing her head in her hands. "This is so going to suck!"

"I thought Gendry knows it's not a real date?" Jon carefully approached her limp form.

"He does! And I don't know what's gotten into me, but I'm really… nervous! I mean, it's going to look like a real date, and I really…"

"Like him?" Jon finished for her.

She glared up at him.

Jon sighed and sat down next to her, wrapping his one arm around her neck. Arya instinctively arched into him, placing her head in the crook of his neck. "You and Gendry are incredibly close. I never thought I'd see the guy get along so well with a girl, he was usually all too much like a blushing maid when it came to females."

"So, you're implying he sees me as one of his mates? Wow, that's so helpful, Jon!"

Jon held her close when she tried to pull away. "That's not what I meant, silly!" he sighed, tickling Arya's neck with his breath. "I mean, it can't end up so bad he decides not to ever hang out with you again. And after all, he'd have me to answer to."

"Stupid, I can do that myself." Arya muttered and felt her brother's body shake with muffled laughter.

"That's my Arya." He plainly said and kissed the top of her head. "Now, go over to Sansa's room, Margaery's there, and they're dying with excitement and Sansa with anxiety. So you better go there like a love-struck bird she thinks you are, so she feels a bit better about her own freaky anticipation." With that he got up to his feet, heading for the door.

Arya groaned. "I sometimes hate you."

"I sometimes almost believe you do."

When she was left alone, Arya turned her head around to stare out of the window. The sky was bright, the few clouds up there tiny and heavenly white.

Nothing like a beautiful day to lighten one's mood.

But there was a stormy sky raging inside her head, and she could not feel any type of excitement for the upcoming evening. She and Gendry met almost five years ago, and almost for a whole year they had seen each other constantly. Jon was right – they  _had_  grown incredibly close, and Arya was as grateful as possible, even if she couldn't find the words to express her gratitude for him.

It took months for Jon to finally get Arya to agree to the plan and get onto the planning; although Gendry had known about it right from the start, he had not mentioned it to her again, and for that she was also grateful. Funky moments had happened between them, of course. The few times they got drunk together and ignored the rest of the world were happy memories for Arya. There was the day he called her before she woke up, excitement buzzing through the phone at Arya's ear the best wake up call to make the mist dissolve from her mind. Sleepiness had left her immediately and she dressed rapidly, grabbing an apple from the kitchen table and driving over to the garage only ten minutes after her phone rang.

Gendry was outside, grinning at her when she slid out Sansa's car. At that moment, before all of her vision was taken over with his beaming face, Arya was thinking about getting a car for herself, feeling guilty for driving Sansa's car so much. The thought and the goal were still unaccomplished on the present day, for Gendry's surprise was just what she needed.

He had been working on something for himself, he told her as he led her inside. Taking up scraps of thrown engines and working overtime, he managed putting together something he took even more pride in than in the Hot Pie's car.

There was a beautiful, mighty motorcycle inside the garage, its black surface so shiny it reminded Arya of silk and Sansa's hair on summer days. The creature was a Harley Davidson at that, too. she ran her hands all over it and grinned blissfully, remembering how she and Jon shared a few excited moments years ago when he told her he planned on saving money to get himself and Ygritte a similar ride. Jon never did, though. Ygritte's death stopped many things, but Arya didn't dwell on the grim thought much. She enjoyed the sight before her too much to feel sadness.

"It's  _majestic_." She breathed out, still holding one hand on the motorcycle. When she looked up to meet Gendry's gaze, her breath was stolen once again. Standing tall, he leaned against the doorframe, watching her intensely with those ocean deep eyes of his. His face was partly hidden in the shadow, but the sun looming behind him highlightened the strong features of his jaw and cheekbones. His body, as always during his time at the garage (and sometimes when they met at Harrenhal just after his work) was covered in grease, but that just made him more spectacular.

What captured Arya's eyes and mind the most, thought, and what made her heart thump and surge up into her throat, was the way he looked at her. Just like she had been watching the Harley Davidson moments ago. Pure want and astonishment and appreciation.

After that day, she never thought of getting herself a car again. Gendry and Angie (yes, he called his motorcycle after a Rolling Stones' song – although it just might have been Arya's idea first) were always there to give her a ride.

Back in present, Arya smiled lightly and thought she could maybe even survive the night. With that thought, she rose up to her feet and went over to Sansa's room, where she was greeted by a similar grin on Sansa's face, a blush that showed the exact amount of excitement and fear she felt herself, and by, of course, Margaery's delighted, blabbering, high voice.

"Keep in mind that Gendry's seen me in all of my bad conditions and not once when I looked pretty. Fooling him by making me look pretty would not succeed. He'll know right away it's false." Arya warned them after closing the door.

Sansa was sitting on a chair at her makeup table, with her back to the mirror. Margaery stood above her with that weird hair-ironing thing in her hands, dragging it over Sansa's long, beautiful locks.

"We're not going to  _fool_  him, smartarse." Margaery rolled her eyes. "You're pretty already. We're just going to accentuate the prettiness you keep guarded like it would kill you if anyone saw it."

Sansa smiled reassuringly. "You'll look just fine, Arya. I promise he'll like it. After all, he'd notice if we made you look too much out of the usual. This way, he'll only notice the beauty he's already come to know."

Her words were great and just what was expected and was supposed to be calming. Arya thought it sounded too weird to be true – she maybe wasn't ugly, but there wasn't any true beauty in her, Sansa got it all.

At that point, she wondered if her role was one she was acting at all. It seemed real, all of this. It didn't seem like only Sansa's date, it seemed like Arya was truly going to have an important night for herself, too.

She sighed and decided not to worry so much. It was an act. It would be easier if she just acted. Gendry knew, of course. He wouldn't be surprised by anything. He knew it was all for show.

"Would you like your hair straight or tied up or something like that?" Margaery quizzed her from Sansa's side.

Arya thought on it for a bit. "I don't want it to be straight. At last, if you mind my natural hair so much, I suppose putting it up wouldn't be so bad."

The two older girls smiled and Arya went over to Sansa's window sill and perched herself up on it. It was her favourite spot in the room.

"I think you'd look brilliant with your hair up." Sansa claimed, squinting at Arya like she was trying to create the image in her mind. "It'd accentuate your gorgeous cheekbones and reveal your neck, and that's always useful."

"Why would revealing my neck be so useful?" Arya asked, truly interested.

Margaery was the one to answer. "Men like it. All the smooth skin, it's attractive and you know how when people start making out and all, they usually go for the neck, biting and kissing. It's obviously an object of popularity's interest."

Arya frowned and raised her hand up to stroke her own neck. It didn't feel as such a splendid sensation. "I don't get it."

Marg noticed Arya's movement. "You can't feel it on your  _own_ , dumby. When someone else touches you, that's when it feels good."

Arya imagined Gendry's sly smile and hazy eyes, twinkling with the same emotion she saw the day he showed her Angie, and she thought of his strong hands keeping a hold of her, and how he would inch his lips closer and closer to the skin of her neck, just barely brushing them over it… she shuddered involuntarily and thanked the Gods that Marg had not paid attention to her at that moment.

In the end, Sansa wore a casual, blue dress for warm days and fresh nights, with short sleeves and a square cut over her chest, barely revealing the tips of her generous bosom. The dress hung loosely around her frame, showing off her thin waist and the arched line of her hips. Her hair was red silk, straight and shining all the way down to the small of her back. Her lips glimmered with pale pink, her cheeks softly blushed, her eyes popping out with their clear, soft blue. When she smiled at the reflection in the mirror, Arya felt so proud and happy she thought the beauty of her sister would just make her chest burst.

They did their best not to bore Arya for too long – they put her hair up into a mess of dark curls that tumbled down her back, took advantage of her dark features to only made them sharper and her eyes stormier, and when she refused to wear lipstick, they looked very disappointed, but she wouldn't budge. When it came to clothes, they came to a compromise – she would not wear a skirt or a dress, but they could choose anything she could remotely accept out of the rest of the clothes.

Marg found tight, black pants that went only a half an inch below her knee, and Arya was amazed with the shirt Sansa dug out of her closet. It was a grey one, light and made for spring, flowing down her torso fittingly, to show off her slim form. Its sleeves were pushed off her shoulders, kept on by two thick strings that were barely noticeable. Marg mocked Arya, saying not only was her neck yummy, the way her collarbone stuck out was just too seducing.

Not for the first time, with Margaery's intent gaze at Arya's reflection in the mirror, the younger female wondered just how heterosexual the older one was. Or whether she was at all.

And just like that, as they came down the stairs, laughing and joking, Jon bounced out of the living room and asked them were they ready. It was time.

**GENDRY**

It was Sunday night, and those nights at Harrenhal were filled with old, beautiful songs and a nice, lone atmosphere.

Gendry and Arya sorted it already between themselves that would be the perfect place for the show to go on. They spoke to Lem, making sure he was well met with their plan, so he wouldn't make inappropriate songs for Sansa's and Willas' sake. They decided to take a table out on the outskirts of the field, where sunset would colour the sky in the way Arya knew Sansa would melt at, and where the night itself would be nice and pleasant with torches lit by every table. It was just the right compromise for different tastes of the people that would share the night.

When he was younger, Gendry had suffered through numerous problems in his mind. He would think of himself as less worthy for being poorer than most, and that would struck his confidence and his words would be rare and he would never think of himself as even remotely intelligent. Jon was of help, but the first person to make him feel better was actually Ygritte. She was ruthless but she understood. She made Gendry feel stupid for feeling stupid. He could never thank her enough.

Now, knowing he was to spend the night with three wealthy personas, Gendry was a bit nervous, but not as much as his younger self would have been. He had come a long way.

After all, there was enough of his nervousness already, and for a completely different reason.

It wasn't that he wasn't relevant of the fact that Arya wasn't truly his date, but more because of… well…

She was just  _so beautiful_.

And the bare skin of her neck and shoulders was just too tempting.

Her idea of the beautiful sunset was supposed to affect the other two, but when Gendry saw her look at the sky and smile dreamily, he felt like he was watching a sight just as beautiful, if not even more.

And when she took her eyes of the orange, pink, purple sky too look at his eyes, he couldn't help but smile in awe and to his astonishment Arya smiled back, not flinching away from his open stare.

Willas was a decent man, not as girlish as Gendry thought Sansa's crush would be. He was a smart, cunning but generous man. It also helped he believe the Queen were better than Mozart or Beethoven. When he admitted, Sansa looked like she had been betrayed, but Arya high-fived him and Gendry shook his hand.

When Sansa started numbering the cons of Willas' statement, Gendry found himself thinking of the day he found out more about Arya's familial life when it came to music.

It wasn't a happy memory.

…

"You ready?"

"No, no, I'll be there in 15, Sansa's going to drive me." Arya said over the phone.

Gendry frowned. "I thought you said she was at Margaery's."

"Oh… yes, well, Robb will drive me, then."

"What's going on, Wolfie?"

Her voice sounded thick and distant. "There's nothing going on. I'll meet you at Harrenhal in 15."

And then she hung up.

She was late. It took her a half an hour, not fifteen minutes, and she came by a taxi. When she got out, she looked around and noticed him leaning back on his bike, glaring at her.

"Hey." She breathed out. She didn't look good. She was pale and her hair was falling out of her messy braid. She wore the same jeans and hoodie she was in the day before. "Sorry I'm late."

She must have mistaken his glaring for anger at her coming late. But it wasn't. "I'm not mad Arya."

"What's wrong, then?", her face scrunched and she looked genuinely concerned, like she… never mind, he thought. "Did something happen?"

"Yes." He said the obvious. "But you're not telling me what."

Her concern melted away in an instant. There was the cold look again, not his Wolfie, not his friend Arya, it was  _the Arya Stark_. Cold as winter, sharp as ice.

"Nothing happened, I don't get why you keep saying that." She said coldly, quietly, like a warning. A threat. Gendry had no death wish, but since she became his friend, he knew there had to be risks.

"You haven't changed your clothes. And there's still the ketchup on your hoodie, from when you spilled it yesterday. You look like you haven't slept at all." He said, crossing his arms on his chest and looking down on her. They glared at each other. Why couldn't she just understand he was only worried about her? "You didn't go home. Where were you?"

Arya started laughing.

And there it was. The last resort.

She always laughed like a maniac when she got cornered. It was her last straw, the thing she did when she could think of nothing else. "You're demented!"

" _No_ , you're  _lying_!" he forced, peeling himself off the bike and stepping toward her. He towered over her, and inch between their bodies. "And I don't get why – all I've ever done was to treat you like a friend, I have, I know I have! I've been there for you as much I could!"

"You think I don't know that?" she screamed back, rage in her eyes. Impossibly, she managed to step even closer without making real physical contact. Her smell, the natural one that smelt like forest and fall and spring and trees and flowers, it all surrounded his senses and he had to fight to keep his mind straight. "You don't think I feel guilty about that? It's not fair taking up your time with my miserable, itsy bitsy problems, when I know you don't deserve having to bear them!"

"But I want to! I want to help, I want to be there for you!" he stepped back and turned his back to her, looking up at the sky.

"I like having you near. I like helping you. It's the least I can do." He said a bit softer.

He heard her sigh and turned back around. She was looking at him with defeat in her eyes.

"My dear mother sort of kicked me out of the house for buying Rickon a record. Ramones."

"Well shit Arya, why didn't you come to me?" he grumbled. Maybe it wasn't the best reaction, but it was impulsive.

"I was ashamed." She admitted. "And afraid. And devastated. I went… I went to King's Landing. I got drunk. Yoren found me. I begged him not to call dad, and he listened, then took me to his place and went to his brother's place. Told me to be out by 10 AM."

He stared at her. He stared at her for a long time. "Why didn't you call?" he said at last. It might have been only his imagination, but his voice sounded lower and raspier.

"I'm sorry." She did sound sorry. Like guilt was eating her out. "I didn't want you to see me like that."

"Oh, Arya." He sighed and rubbed his forehead. "You're bloody stupid sometimes, y'know that?"

Then she nodded and he went over to her to give her a strong hug. She hugged back greedily, like she was about to lock herself around him and stay. He wouldn't mind one bit. As he waited for her breathing to slow down (she always got upset when she got into a fight with her parents), he whispered to her ear.

"You never told me it was that bad with her."  _Her_  meaning Arya's mother.

"I could tell you know." She answered against his chest.

"Good." He nodded and let her go. "'Cause you will."

"Okay."

She stayed at his place for a week before her parents finally decided they've had enough of it, and asked Jon and Sansa to find her and get her back home.

Meanwhile, Gendry and Arya spent their time lounging around, eating cheap pizza and drinking cheaper beer, watching movie marathons and football games. He took a few free days while she was at his place, so she wouldn't be bored, and she made him pancakes and waffles for breakfast every morning. It was brilliant.

But she refused sleeping in his bed after the first night. They switched places and she slept on the sofa for the rest of the days. He never got her to confess what was so wrong with his bed.

…

"Okay, I really need a beer." Arya said and jumped up to her feet. The night had fallen around them completely, and the torches burnt wildly, reflecting their light in Sansa's hair, like she was a torch herself.

"I'll come with." Gendry said and stood up. Arya smiled at him and they started for the inside of the Harrenhal, to the bar.

"Could you bring me one, too?" Willas asked.

Sansa sighed. "I'll take one, too."

Arya and Gendry exchanged surprised looks at Sansa's words, but then he shrugged and they started walking again.

"I think it's going pretty well between them." Arya said. She looked positively radiant, too.

"Err… I wouldn't really know…"

"Yeah, I noticed. You sort of zoned off a bit, didn't you?" when he nodded, she continued. "What were you thinking about?"

"Nothing much. Just a few memories." He shrugged off her question. She didn't look too pleased with the answer, but then they finally got to the bar and Thoros greeted them and asked for their orders.

"You've got a beautiful sister, m'lady Arya." Thoros smirked as he went to fetch their orders.

Arya frowned. "If I didn't like this place too much to be banned, I'd have a few things to say to you for that title."

Gendry snorted and Thoros and Arya looked at him. "Been there, experienced that. And words aren't the only weapon of violence. She likes physical violence a lot more."

Thoros laughed and Arya smacked Gendry on the shoulder. He smiled fondly at her, rubbing his shoulder. She was so perfect, he couldn't care less if she decided to decapitate him right there and then.

"Stupid." She muttered.

"You fight like you're already married." Thoros said through his laughter.

" _Already!_?" Gendry said.

" _Married_!?" Arya said.

Thoros looked uncomfortable. "I just thought…" he trailed off.

"What?" Arya looked puzzled.

Gendry realized and tried to warn her. "Arya, just forget it…"

"No, Gendry," she turned back to Thoros and slapped away Gendry's hand. "What did you think?"

"Well, we were all quite certain you two were… y'know…"

"What? Who? Wait… No!" Arya snapped. "Gendry and me? Why would you think that?!"

Thoros shook his head with a smile. "Wisdom. You've got a lot to learn, Wolfie."

"What about? Gendry, what do you think about this?" Arya placed her hands on her hips.

He sighed and rolled his eyes. "We're practically on a date right now, Wolfie." He turned to glare at Thoros. "Not a real one, though. It's pretence." He turned back to Arya, his gaze softening. "And we do come a lot. It's not like what they thought had no bases. People observe and conclude. They just weren't right."

Arya looked troubled, biting down on her lip. She crossed her arms on her chest, and Gendry's chest vibrated with the urge to touch her. Just a second of her soft skin beneath his fingers…

"Yeah." She said finally as Thoros brought them their order. "Thanks." She said and they started back for the table.

When they came back, Sansa was sitting next to Willas, his arms holding her completely against him, rubbing her arm.

"It got cold." Sansa said with a blush creeping up her face.

"Oh, you don't have to make excuses." Arya winked and Sansa blushed more furiously.

"Were you?" Willas smirked down at the woman in his arms. "Making excuses, I mean."

Gendry sat down next to Arya and they exchanged knowing glances. It was happening.

It took a moment for Sansa to answer. "I – I weren't… it is getting quite cold…" she trailed off, staring up into Willas' eyes. Gendry thanked the Gods when she finally spoke again. "But I must admit, if I had known it would be this nice, I would have made up an excuse before."

Just then, Arya jumped up to her feet once again. She looked like she swallowed a furious chipmunk, hyperactive and blushing. She was about to lie, Gendry knew.

"We brought you the beers!" she pushed the beers closer to the couple across them, the couple that both looked at Arya with disbelief and, on Sansa's face, worry. "Now, if you'll excuse us… I've got to… I mean, we're going to… ugh, I really want a snog session with my man Gendry over here!" she grabbed Gendry's collar to pull him up, and grabbed her jacket just as he grabbed his. "I'll take this one, too." she snatched Sansa's thin vest, probably to make sure she wouldn't move away from Willas. "Excuse us! Enjoy! Make merry! Bye!"

When they were out of ear shot, Gendry first took Arya's fist away from his collar (not that he didn't prefer her touching him, but she was  _choking_  him) before speaking. "Snog session, my woman?"

"Shut up." She muttered but he noticed a smile on her face. "They're so going to kiss!"

Gendry snorted as they neared his beautiful Angie. "Please. If that were us, we'd probably be somewhere trying to find a bed already."

Arya laughed but just as he climbed on the bike, waiting for her to follow behind him, she leaned down and solemnly said: "The night is young, my man."

They laughed about it for the rest of the way to his apartment.

**JON**

_-Arya and Gendry left. She mentioned a snog session, but I doubt that's what's going to happen._

Sansa's message was only 50% disappointing. If Arya left already, that meant something was unravelling between Sansa and Willas.

Gods, Jon felt like bloody Cupid.

Just then, his phone rand. "Arya?"

"Yeah, it's me. Sansa and Willas are  _so_  going to get together!" Arya said happily.

"Good, but where are you?"

"I'm at Gendry's. We're probably going to watch movies the whole night or play poker or something. Also pizza. Want to come?"

He was really hungry, but the plan still had a chance of being 100% fulfilled. "No thanks, I'm exhausted."

Which, he wasn't.

"Oh… I'm sorry. Want me to save you some pizza?"

He laughed. She might have been almost 21, but Arya still had that childish affection toward him. It was like when they were younger, he was her favourite, her idol, her everything. She'd have done anything for him back then, and he was certain she would now, too.

"No, thanks. Take care. And, Arya…"

"Yeah?"

"You're in love with him."

He hung up.

Rubbing his hands together, he grinned wickedly.

And then he remembered the blonde chick he met at the guitar shop near King's Landing. He had her number…

**ARYA**

"You're in love with him."

_in love with him_

_Arya_. In love with  _him_.

With  _Gendry_.

Arya was in love with Gendry.

"That  _arsehole_!" she practically shouted at the phone when she heard the click from the other side.

She heard a thud from her place on the sofa, and looked up just in time to see Gendry stumbling into the living room in his jeans only.

That definitely didn't help rejecting Jon's statement, not when all she could think of was licking her way down his torso and biting his flesh.

"Is everything all right?" Gendry asked and rubbed his butt with a painful expression on his face.

So he fell on his butt.

"No!" she shouted, feeling her face burn. "I mean, yes. It's all right. Jon's just being an arsehole, typical."

"What'd he do?"

"Nothing relevant, go get dressed so I can, too."

Gendry rolled his eyes. "I don't get what you're so conservative about. It you don't want me to look, I won't, but it'd be faster if you just changed right now, too."

She was about to brush him off when she realized she was acting childishly. It was the defence mechanism, she supposed. Something to repulse the people she actually liked when they showed they like her back.

"All right."

Gendry looked shocked at the sound of her agreement, but shrugged and went back to his bedroom.

She decided to wearing his grey shorts (that came down below her knee) and his Star Wars T-shirt.

While she undressed, she peered at Gendry and his bare arms and back. And caught him peering over at her a couple of times, too. She pretended she didn't notice.

She was in love with him.

Was she?

She kept replaying Jon's words inside her head.

Yes, she knew she felt something for Gendry, but being in love was just… dangerous.

"Hey, pepperoni pizza or what?" he called from the kitchen when she settled down on the sofa again.

"Pepperoni." She answered and heard him repeat the words at the phone.

How could she not be in love with the guy that knew how she liked her pizza and who let her wear his favourite T-shirt of their favourite movie series?

When the pizza came, he turned on the DVD player, letting her chose the movie.

"How about… Goonies?"

Gendry snorted. "You bet."

Arya smiled and pressed play on the remote control, and they sat on the sofa and ate pizza as the movie begun.

"Gendry?"

"Humph?"

"Would it be too much if I lie down?" she asked.

He cocked up one eyebrow. "Just watch out for the stiffy and it'll be fine."

She smacked his arm but then he pulled her down with him, and she lay against his chest with his arms around her. The pizza was half eaten, but forgotten, too.

As they watched the movie, Gendry started rubbing circles with his thumb on the small of her back, and she knew it was impossible for him not to notice the way she shivered at the touch. He smelt wonderfully and she never wanted to move away. His body was strong and big and she felt content and comfortable inside his embrace, and when she responded to his touch by drawing lines all over his arm that rested half over his stomach and with his palm resting on her hip, he drew in a deep inhale and caught her hand. She stiffened for a moment, suddenly fearing she had ruined everything they built for a year, when his hand moved again, this time reaching for her fist.

With a bit of hesitation, and not a word spoken, Gendry entwined their fingers and let their joined hands rest on his chest next to her head, and just above his heart.

Arya's heart was thumping so fast she thought it was going to leap out, and she had to close her eyes for a moment, because she had felt tears prickle in their corners.

Gendry was holding her hand, Gendry who drove a Harley Davidson named after a Rolling Stones' song, Gendry who understood her jokes better than anyone, Gendry who was able to rival her insane theories of aliens and chickens, Gendry who had the body she swooned over since she was 16, Gendry whose eyes made her want to drown in an ocean she saw in them, Gendry who was brilliant, strong and hot in all the possible ways. He was hot in the sexy way and he was hot in the way that she felt genuinely sorry for anyone who got in his way.

Gendry who she never dared to even imagine having, he was holding Arya's hand, and she was in love, she was so bloody in love.

"I don't even care the pizza's grown cold." He mumbled into her hair and gave her hand a squeeze just before he drifted off to sleep.


	6. Howling In The Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Smut warning! Mostly Arya/Gendry. What happens behind a closed door...

_I'm sorry to interrupt, it's just I'm constantly on the cusp of trying to kiss you..._

**GENDRY**

He woke up just in time to see the movie end.

Arya was tucked tightly into his side, her hand still in his, his other hand planted on the small of her back. She made these funny soft sounds while she slept – like a cat purring. He smiled and felt his heart beat faster in his chest.

He was holding Arya in a way that could no longer be explained as friendly. And after a year of constantly spending time in her presence, it was like a rock falling off of his heart. Ever since the day she met Hot Pie and went to Harrenhal with them for the first time, Gendry had known he fancied her, but not in the ordinary way. There was a time he even fancied _Jeyne_ – and she was no person to behold, plainly a pretty face and hot body. Willow had liked him, but Gendry couldn’t think of her that way. She was tiny and younger and so oblivious to the real problems life served you, and Gendry could only feel for her in a brotherly way.

Now that he thought about it, he guessed Arya was much like Willow, too. But there was something to Arya, an untamed beauty and passion hidden beneath her metal eyes. He wasn’t one for words, never could stand poetry without shaking his head, but with Arya, he wished to be the most eloquent poet to be able to prettily express his affection; he wanted to be the most precise painter to make a masterpiece that represented the bliss he felt in her presence; he wanted to be smarter and better to deserve her properly, too.

Arya squirmed in his arms and pulled back a bit, and when he looked down at her, he saw her face was flushed and her body positively burning. It was a bit too warm, with two of them on a tiny sofa.

Not letting his mind wander too far, Gendry softly pushed Arya off of him and laid her back down once he was out. He stood over her for a moment, watching her as she let out a distressed puff and rolled onto her side, her back to him. The T-shirt she was wearing – his T-shirt – had ridden up her torso, revealing her hip. Gendry inhaled deeply and closed his eyes before turning away from her.

He crossed his small apartment, entering his bedroom. He approached the clothes he had early taken off, and digging into the pocket of his worn out jeans, pulled out a half empty pack of Marlboro.

Arya had matches, he knew, as he dug his fist into her small leather jacket’s pockets. He mostly had lighters, but Arya kept losing them. And with matches, you never could quite lose them. In fact, it seemed as if you couldn’t really get rid of them, at all.

He went back out of his bedroom, past the sleeping Arya, out onto the small balcony. He shut the door behind him, knowing they were so old they only needed a mildly strong push to get them to open.

Gendry leaned over the fence and looked up at the dark sky. The moon was shining brightly, and he imagined hearing howling from far away. No, he thought, the only one howling would be the wolf behind his back, sleeping on his sofa.

He sighed and put the cigarette between his lips, flicking it afire with a match. He took a long drag and let the smoke out through his nose.

It wasn’t that he was nervous or anything. Arya might have been lying in his clothes, on his sofa, and they just might have crossed the ‘friends’ border of their relationship, but why would he be nervous?

His fingers shook when he brought the cigarette up to his lips again.

Right. He wasn’t nervous.

“Bull?” he heard soft, sleepy voice call. Arya was awake.

“I’m out on the balcony.” He pushed the door open a bit so he wouldn’t have to shout for her to hear him properly.

He leaned back on the fence and continued studying the moon. It wasn’t white, he thought (Arya was shuffling inside), it was more of a yellow… (he heard Arya groan and knew she was stretching – he refused the urge to glance back at her).

“Hi.”

He turned around and saw her leaning against the doorframe. Her hair was completely wild, running down her shoulders in messed up curls. He loved it. She was smiling softly, nervously, shyly, and he loved that too.

“Hi.” He responded, and felt his mouth stretch into a huge grin. Arya’s face reddened a little, but looked like she was mad at herself for that. She cleared her throat and tried to keep the small smile off her face. He knew she couldn’t do it. He loved her stubbornness, too.

“So…” she said. “Goonies have made the right, moral decision and left the ship no matter how much gold there was.” She said. They’ve seen the movie at least a dozen times, but that was just the thing they did – a small summary on the end of every movie, with a follow up question. Just for amusement. “ Of course, their morality and justness was rewarded. Happy ending.”

“Isn’t there always one?” Gendry sighed theatrically.

“And… so… movie is over. Pizza is cold. I’m not hungry, I’m not in the mood to watch another movie, and I’m _definitely_ not sleepy anymore.”

“Mmhm.”

“And the question would be…” Arya watched him intently as he brought the cigarette up to his lips again and took a long drag, before the smoke spilled out and over his lips. “What should we do?”

With her dark eyes, bed hair, red lips, and that Darth Vader shirt of his he loved so much on her, he could only think of one thing he wanted to do with her.

He stayed silent, softly tapping out his cigarette before throwing it into the ashtray on the window sill.

When she kept her mouth shut, too, he looked up again to see her smile gone, a very unreadable expression on her face.

Gendry made himself speak through the lump in his throat. “I can think of a few things.”

**JON**

“You seriously want to do this?” Big, violet eyes watched him incredulously.

He swallowed thickly. “Yeah, what’s there to lose?”

She gave him a frown full of disbelief, but shrugged and went to the back of the tattoo parlour.

“Illyrio, I’ll take this one.”

She came back only to motion for him to follow her behind the purple curtains in the back of the place. The walls were filled with drawings, paintings and pictures of people with tattoos. There was a blue-haired boy behind the cash register, flipping through a magazine with tattoos.

It was a stupid idea, but Jon couldn’t find it in himself to regret it, because when Dany pulled the curtains on, hiding the boy and the walls, she gave him a big, goofy smile and he couldn’t help but return it.

“Okay, crazy, time to start.”

She made him settle on the big chair – like the ones you had to sit in at the dentist’s – and asked where exactly he wanted the tattoo.

He scrambled for words a bit, her unusually beautiful face providing a strong distraction, before muttering, “Just on my shoulder.”

“And you want a picture of a howling wolf…”

“- with the words ‘Winter is coming’ around it.” Jon nodded and she nodded, too.

“You’ve got some balls on you, boy, I’ll give you that.” She said and started searching for her tools. “I go out to grab a drink with you, only to come back to job. I don’t know whether you’re trying to impress me, but…” she trailed off as he took off his button up shirt, leaving him in a black sleeveless tank top.

“Cat got your tongue?” he teased her, not knowing where exactly he got the inspiration to do so. “I’m not trying to impress you, but I really want a tattoo, and have wanted so for a while, but it just seems to be that I’m a coward, and now I’ve had a bit to drink and I’ve got a beautiful lady I have to be strong for by my side and – “

“-and you’re a bit more than just tipsy!” she cut him off, laughing nonetheless. “I get it.”

“And I’ll pay you more!” he quipped.

“Oh, I really wouldn’t want you to do that. I wouldn’t accept it, either.” She told him sternly, wiping some strange and smelly liquid over the skin of his shoulder. He caught her wrist to make her focus on his eyes, and training his at her firmly.

“I’m not paying you that way. I’ll be taking you out a few times more, and make sure the drinks, or meals, are on me.”

She blinked only once, her stare blank for a moment before bursting into laughter again. Through all of that, though, Jon noticed her cheeks were flushed with colour and smiled.

“You’ve got some nerve on you, Snow.”

 

**ARYA**

She really didn’t know how it happened. Not while his hands were running over her bare back like she was the only thing to keep him alive.

They were on the balcony, one moment. There was an undertone that meant flirting beneath everything they said – well, what _she_ said. And then there was that look in his eyes, the kind of look that radiated heat that burned into her eyes before traveling all the way down between her legs.

Then he was suddenly reaching out, catching her hands before pulling her against him completely, and she collapsed against him, and this time, he grabbed her hips. There were thousands of déjà-vu scenes bubbling up inside her head, all the times they were close enough, or their stares open enough. None of those times, though, did he hold her in a death grip by her hips, and none of those times did she grab his neck and dig her nails into his skin, enticing a small groan of satisfaction that escaped his lips.

His back was still against the fence, and night was fresh and there was a soft, cold breeze, but her skin was burning when he slowly let his hand wander up and down her back, his other still holding her hip. His eyes – his wonderful, blue, magically deep eyes not once leaving her face. His lips were softly parted, like in awe, and her own were, too, exactly in awe. She trailed her thumb over his jaw, the part of him she had so many times watched in admiration, appreciating the handsome and strong look about it.

When he slowly started closing the distance between them, fear exploded in her chest.

Not in the usual way, though.

Every time they got close to this moment, every time she was to experience the essence of his lips on her own, something happened to pull them apart. Every single time. And now, Gendry was taking it fucking slow. She didn’t have the nerves to do it – she wanted him, she wanted him in every way, in any way. She wanted him roughly, most of all, because she was tired and he was the reason of her frustration, and she had felt that warmth in her belly so many times in the past year, and he was _always_ to reason to it – always!

So she growled and pulled herself up by his neck, until their lips crashed and he gave out a surprised sigh, but quickly pulled his hands tightly around her, so she wouldn’t need to lose her strength on keeping herself up.

But there was that part – she had done it, she had kissed him, but she hadn’t thought of how it would feel like. Sure, she’s kissed boys. Sure, it was nice sometimes. Rarely. Barely…

But this was Gendry, and his lips were warm and inviting and sucking the life out of her lower lip and she whined in his grip, and brought her legs around his waist, and he trailed his hands down her ass and thighs, and up again.

When she opened her mouth to gather as much air as she could before he attacked her lips again, he took the chance to slip his tongue between her lips and she…

Was losing it.

He tilted his head to a side to deepen the kiss, and his tongue mockingly, erotically slow, grazed the inside of her mouth before colliding with her tongue. He let her take over, and she felt proud when her tongue made him moan and shudder. The pride was short lasting, though, and surprise was what she felt when he suddenly jerked into motion, pressing her hard against him and not breaking the kiss as he went inside the apartment, and she noticed through the haze his kisses brought that he was moving toward the bedroom. And she was grateful. This way, she wouldn’t have to plead for years before he gave in.

 

**SANSA**

“So he didn’t kiss you?”

Sansa sighed and closed her eyes in defeat. “ _No_.”

“How do you know it was a proper date, then?”

Margaery was seemingly oblivious to the amount of annoyance Sansa was feeling. She was blissfully munching on a bagel, being very careful not to make a mess over her PJ’s or the bed cover. All of the crumbs fell neatly onto the plate between the two girls.

“I’ve told you – it was romantic, and he was a gentlemen as real men ought to be, and we shared some very intimate thoughts and opinions – “

“Unless you were talking about ‘ _yes or no to handcuffs on third_ _date’_ , I don’t think those were the thoughts I’d classify as intimate.” Margaery grunted through a mouthful of the chocolate bagel Sansa had so cautiously made just for her best friend’s taste.

They sat on Margaery’s bed in Margaery’s room in their apartment, making a sort of a sleepover. They had played bakers shortly after Sansa had arrived from her date, and sang the cheesiest non-classical songs they could find that Sansa would approve of without feeling much guilt.

Now they were wearing their most comfortable, completely unprovocative PJ’s and eating bagels in bed while watching a romantic comedy Margaery had bought while she was shopping the other day.

“Marg, _honestly_ …” Sansa shook her head and rubbed her temples with her index fingers. She was gaining a headache from Margaery’s insufferable questions and conclusions. She looked at her friend’s worktable where there was another plate of lemoncakes they had made earlier that evening too, but Sansa would not let herself take a single bite without her younger sister there to share.

“Didn’t hear from Arya?” Margaery asked after swallowing. It was like she had read Sansa’s thoughts, and for that, and for changing the topic, Sansa was immensely grateful.

“No!” she hopped onto the track of Margaery’s impossibly unorganized thoughts as if it was the last thing that would keep her alive. She had spent so much time worrying over the possibility of a relationship with the most wonderful man she had ever met, and now that she had begun feeling a spark of hope, she couldn’t _possibly_ take more doubts to her heart for fear of completely crumbling down. “Isn’t that strange? It isn’t that weird she’s spending time with him alone, but after officially going out for the first time, I have to wonder…”

Margaery snorted and laughed, her pretty green eyes crackling with mischief and her lips curving in a smirk. “You see, my brother did not do his duty properly. If he had, you wouldn’t be wondering about your sister’s activities with her bull, you’d have someone else on your mind and your own activities to go on about.”

Sansa from a couple of years ago would have gasped in horror of such a thought, and Sansa from earlier that day would have laughed and retorted with something polite but secretly equal in vulgarity. _This_ Sansa, though, was tired and emotionally wasted and only capable of sighing and rolling her eyes… _again_.

“I don’t even know if you’re aware that it’s your own brother you’re mentioning in such a manner.”

“I didn’t say it would be _me_ daydreaming about him.” Margaery rolled her eyes. “You’re sometimes so… - “

“Stupid?” Sansa muttered.

“I was going to say something more like silly.” Margaery narrowed her eyes at her. “Pretty girl, you know I cherish your presence too greatly to endanger it with simple insults – which would also be demented and dishonest.”

Sansa let herself smile a bit  - Margaery might have been far from a similar soul, but she was, in her own way, a soul completely compatible to Sansa’s. She was her dearest friend, one she had never hoped or even dreamed to find.

“Thank you.” Sansa said and reached over to squeeze her friend’s hand. Margaery smiled and squeezed back.

“Anytime, dear.”

And as they shared another one of their not-so-rare, close, caring looks, not for the first time, Sansa felt a small pang of curiosity as Margaery unblinkingly stared into her eyes.

They were friends, right?

 _Only_ friends?

“You should call Arya!” Margaery suddenly quipped in an excited voice. “Ooh that would be almost mean!”

“Mean – considering what?” Sansa frowned and pulled out her cell. “Do you think we’d be interrupting something?”

“I am almost certain we would! Have you seen the way she looks at him every time he’s not looking at her? Like she could eat him with her eyes? And how he seems like he’s hurting and dying when she looks away and he roams his eyes all over her? Girl, after tonight as their unspoken confession of affection – see that rhymed – we’d deeeeeefinitely be interrupting!” Margaery happily clapped her hands and laughed. “Now call, call, call!”

“Wouldn’t that be rude? I mean, I most certainly do not wish to think of my sister doing things… like that – “

“- you mean jumping that stud’s bones.”

Sansa ignored her. “ – but I do wish her to have fun and act upon her heart’s desire. She’s deserved all the pleasure in the world, from all the troubles she’s had by now.”

“Oh, trust me – your sister _will_ _have_ all the _pleasure_ in the world before the dawn breaks.” Margaery laughed again. “But that does not mean we cannot have some fun from that, too!”

Sansa rolled her eyes before looking down at the cell in her hand. Margaery nudged her in the ribs, moving to sit next to her so she could eavesdrop easily, and Sansa reluctantly started scrolling through the list of her saved numbers for her sister’s name.

 

**ARYA**

“You – you are sure, right?”

She had trouble focusing on his words while his lips were doing a lot better while working against her own than speaking up. Unless he was moaning her name.

“ _What_?!” He tugged on her bottom lip with his teeth and she felt like she would break apart any second. Every place he touched her body seemed to heat up and grow hot until her whole body felt like it was on fire. “ _Of course_ I’m bloody sure – I’ve been waiting for quite a while!”

Gendry’s ragged breathing changed to something between laughter and a groan as she gripped his hips tighter with her thighs, pushing them closer together at all the right parts.

“No longer than I have.” He claimed as he gently stroked her brow with his thumb, then her cheek, and her lower lip, before leaning back down to kiss her not as gently. When one of his hands found its way under her shirt and gripped her hip, the contact itself, innocent enough, was all it took for her back to arch from his bed.

She tried to keep the sounds of pleasure for herself, but as his tongue ran all over her mouth, greedily seeking the interaction of her own, she couldn’t hold back a long, aching moan that expressed all of the frustration and want that was growing and pooling between her legs in form of an excruciating, blissful, pain.

“I’m afraid Darth Vader would not be accompanying us tonight.” Gendry said in a low voice as he trailed hot, biting kisses down her neck, and suddenly, her (his, actually) shirt was being swiftly taken off of her, and Gendry’s mouth was travelling down to her collarbone, where she felt particularly weak when he bit her flesh.

“I don’t think any sort of fabric would be needed tonight.” She agreed hurriedly, pulling him back to her mouth by tugging on his hair, and while he was busy trying to control the kiss she had all the power over, she was already taking off his shirt.

In the moment she felt his skin cover hers, without any fabric between them, she thought of cursing and thanking all the gods she knew at the same time, because there was nothing quite as blood-boiling as the sight of a shirtless Gendry up so close. She ran her hands all over his chest and stomach and scratched his back with her nails so hard he moaned into her mouth.

But then he decided the bra she was wearing was also an unneeded object between them, and when it was finally removed, he raised one eyebrow at her wickedly before suddenly lowering his mouth to her breasts.

She sucked in a sharp breath as she felt his tongue circle her nipple, and grabbed onto his hair in a fear he would stop. Arya’s eyes almost rolled back as he softly bit into the tender flesh and kissed it far more gently than his latest kiss to her lips was.

As he rose back up to kiss her lips again, she locked her arms tightly around his neck, pulling him completely against her, and he encircled her with his arms, and she made sure to let him know his weight wouldn’t be a bother – it was more than welcome.

Was it burning that she felt as the touch of their bare skin? Was it fire or was it just pleasure she had not yet known, not ever? Or was it a far more dangerous thing she had never let herself experience, until Gendry sneaked upon her, like a shadow, so cunningly, so impossibly? He truly caught her unaware, and he, unconsciously for her, had built a bridge over whatever barricade she made when it came to affection. Was it love she felt when he touched her without restraint, after all that time?

“Gendry…” she moaned against his lips and his hands tightened, his eyes shot open, like he had noticed something different about her voice, something new in her resolve to stay with him that night.

He softly brushed a lock of hair from her eyes and pulled away only slightly, as if waiting for an answer to his unspoken question.

She had never fancied herself to be able to fall in love. Much less to do it so recklessly. And never, in a million years, would she believe she would ever be first to confess love to someone, or confess love at all.

“I… I might… “

And that was when her phone started ringing.

Never before had Clapton sounded so annoying.

Gendry groaned and dropped his head to the crook of her neck, and Arya sighed.

“You should answer that.” He said, his voice muffled.

“Yeah. Might be family, damn them and their sense of timing.”

He chuckled softly and let her pull out of his embrace enough to stretch over to grab her phone from his nightstand where she had left it earlier while they were changing.

“It’s Sansa.” She said with annoyance obvious in her voice.

Gendry pulled her back into his arms so that she lay below him once again, while he trailed kissed up and down her neck, like he was making sure she wouldn’t forget what was happening between them – what _had_ happened between them – before the blasted phone went off.

“What do you need?”

“I – um…” Sansa sounded unsure and almost confused. Arya was almost fuming because Gendry was starting to bite her neck and it was so bloody distracting. And her sister just couldn’t form words to make them finish the conversation as soon as possible. “I wanted to check in. See if you’re all right… You were supposed to come to our place after the date. You know. I made lemoncakes.”

Sansa sounded hopeful, but Arya was feeling hopeful about something else for more than a year, and looking at Gendry’s eyes with crazily dilated pupils, she knew it wasn’t lemoncakes she was so eager to have inside her.

“Oh, I’m all right! Perfectly fine! You have the lemoncakes, I’ll come by in the – you know what, sometime tomorrow.”

Why wouldn’t she have a perfectly nice, long morning with Gendry?

He was grinning at her, and she knew he was reading – and liking – her thoughts.

“Oh. Okay. Have fun.”

“I will be.” Arya mussed before clicking the line off and throwing her phone away from the bed.

“Now, where were we?” Gendry teased her and she couldn’t help the crazy smile that spread across her face.

“Somewhere about taking the rest of the clothes off.” She advised him.

He laughed and obliged, sliding his hands down her sides, teasing her nipples with his thumbs before hooking his fingers into her shorts and panties at the same time, taking them off in a record time.

Careful not to stop breathing completely, Arya watched him as he took off his pants and boxers, and gulped at the sight of his cock. It might have been a bit of fear that she felt, but all the rest was pure anticipation and want and excitement. A sort of a physical hunger.

She pulled his head back down to hers and kissed him hard and long, making sure he knew how impossible to turn back from that point it was. He seemed eager to keep it that way, too, and his hands slipped over her naked skin in the most perfect way, creating a pressure, a pattern that drove Arya crazy and needy, and she almost started writhing beneath him from the heat she felt.

“Planning on starting anytime soon?” she asked him breathlessly and he let out a laughter that sounded like a bark.

“Not without you, honey.”

Arya groaned and felt her muscles strain in need and urgency as his fingers slowly danced over her body, sliding up and down her abdomen before going further down between her legs. Her breath escaped her in ragged gasps and she bit her lip not to moan as he pushed his fingers between her folds, gently rubbing her warm, wet centre. Her legs tightened her hold on Gendry’s hips and she felt him shudder a second before he slid a finger into her.

“Holy cow.” She whined and felt him tremble with laughter. “Don’t stop!”

She barely got to finish her demand when his lips went back to hers and his finger started slowly pushing in and out, pressing into her and making her roll her hips. It felt better than anything ever – it was like an itch she could never come close to scratching on her own. It was like a year without water before it rained. It was Gendry closer to her than ever before, Gendry whom she had wanted and needed and loved, loved so hard for a long time, and now he was in her grip and she was in his and they were wrapped up in each other and for the first time in her life, Arya felt complete. She felt complete and perfected and blissful.

If only he would finally stop with the teasing, because they both knew a fucking finger wasn’t enough.

“Gendry?”

“Hmm?” he was kissing her up and down her jaw. She felt slick with sweat, but so was he.

“I’m ready.”

He looked down at her with something similar to what she felt. Admiration, maybe. For her it was love. She was Arya fucking Stark but that didn’t mean she couldn’t love. It just meant she loved harder.

His finger slowly left her pulsing core and he lowered himself, so he was almost touching her, but not quite. She pulled him down for a kiss, embracing his body with all the strength he had, trying to tell him that she truly wanted this, and he seemed to hear, because he slowly lowered his hips, sinking into her, connecting his hips with her own, without much hesitation. Just like he knew she needed it.

It hurt a bit, but not much. It was like that uncomfortable stretching of muscles a day after a big sports tournament. Nothing much, and she kissed him harder to let him know she was just fine.

More than fine, because when she felt herself adapt to him, it started creating a shimmering of a feeling she was getting only a glimpse of. There was no denying they fell into each other perfectly, but she knew there was more, and she jerked her hips up into his, pushing and asking for more friction.

Gendry broke the kiss and asked her in a breathless voice, “Hurts?”

“No.” she said and felt him pull out and then slowly fill her again, and this time it was more pleasure than pain.

Next time he started filling her, she jerked her hips up to meet his, harder, rougher, and his breath hitched. She slid her hand around his neck to dig her fingers into his hair and he kissed her neck strangely gentle for the way he slid into her next, hungry and fast.

She gasped and felt a small eruption of fire and pleasure and rolled her hips just as he pulled in again. His movements were beginning to fasten and she felt him relax and let go of restraint as her pleasure started building, burning through her in the worst, excruciating, frustrating desire.

She arched her back up to meet his hips and he pushed into her harder, and she almost screamed. It felt so good. He was filling her completely, removing all the stress she felt before, putting an end to her suffering and releasing so much pleasure she knew was blocked before he came in.

“ _Arya…_ ” he growled into her lips and she pressed back into him, gripping his hips with her thighs harder than she knew she could. “ _Arya_!”

She wanted to tell him to let go completely, but she couldn’t find her voice, so she just pushed harder and met his hips each time, and he seemed to get the point, because he started pushing in and out faster and harder and she felt like she would explode, like he would rip her soul out with the impossible thirst he made her feel. She had him inside her, and she was burning for more,  and more, and always more, more of Gendry, more friction, more pressure, more speed.

His hips rolled and she found the best position to be at, spread her legs to give him better entrance, and then when he pushed, he got in deeper, and she felt worse and better at the same time.

She turned her head to a side to get to his lips, and he kissed her frantically fast and wanting, and she bit on his lips before sliding her tongue into his mouth and he moaned and his voice was breaking and she arched her hips up even more, and he finally, finally let go and fucked her properly, to the point of breaking.

In the haze of the bliss he was giving her, she thought if it was just sex, or if it had something to do with Gendry being Gendry. She wondered if there was anyone else that would make her want to pull a cock inside her deep and hard. She drove him crazy with the way she rolled her hips against his, and as their skin smacked together, she slid her fingers up and down his long, muscular, sweaty back, and one of his hands went to her breasts, and she moaned and moaned and moaned and just wanted it to never stop and to finally reach the end.

“Oh, Arya.” He whispered a second before he kissed her, softly, gently, and it broke her down, making her walls convulse and shatter and tightened so hard it brought Gendry to his end too, and he pushed into her a few more times, before collapsing against her wet, satisfied body filled with him and  pleasure.

The feeling he gave her was more than anything she had ever felt, intense and complete ecstasy combined with the emotional satisfaction. Gendry groaned and pulled away to lay next to her on his back, and she rolled on her side, putting her head on his shoulder and one hand on his chest. She kept her eyes closed, listening to her heart’s frantic pounding, enjoying the bliss, when she felt his fingers trail the pattern of her spine. Arya opened his eyes to find him looking at her with a small, content smile. She returned it with a huge grin and he leaned into her to softly kiss her lips.

“I really hope it was as good for you as it was for me.” She told him and he laughed.

“You’re sometimes so oblivious.” He was still laughing as he rolled onto his side to come closer to her face. “So damn oblivious.” He said quietly.

“I think it was a good first date.” Arya said. He snorted and she raised her eyebrows.

“First date?”

“Wasn’t it?”

“Arya, I don’t think that apart from the last activity, the rest of our hanging out was much different than this so called _date_.”

She tsked her tongue and narrowed her eyes. “It was our first date, at least officially.”

“Actually, it was a fake first date. We were supposed to pretend.”

“Why are you trying so hard to diminish the power of our epic romance?” she accused him.

“Oh, I am so very sorry, m’lady, for insulting our ever so glorious love story.” He teased back and pulled her closer with his hand around her waist. “I shall never again do anything similar for the likes of our splendid connection.”

“Yeah, you better!” she laughed and leaned in to kiss him, and he bit her lips before giving in.

Maybe she wouldn’t even have to confess her feelings. Maybe he already knew everything there was to know.

He certainly was kissing her like there would be no tomorrow, and she thought that already was enough to keep her heart steady and safe.

Who knew what tomorrow would bring, right? Maybe her parents would barge into his apartment, maybe Sansa would run away with the famous boxer Hound, maybe Jon would choose to give his heart to another person again… but what Arya knew, what she was completely certain of, was the fact that she wouldn’t be leaving Gendry’s side anytime soon.

 

**NED**

Saturday mornings were never lazy for Ned Stark.

But they sure were relaxing.

Every Saturday, he’d get up near the sunrise, share a quiet breakfast with his beloved wife, before driving to his office. Ever since he got back home all those years ago, he had an office in _Seven Kingdoms_ – his and his partner’s record company. And his partner was none less than Robert Baratheon.

In the beginning, they were two kids, two best friends, two musicians that shared similar hopes for future. A steady career in the music industry and a warm home and a carrying family by their side.

Ned sometimes lost himself in the memories of their youth, and wished that he had never met his best friend with his sister. Lyanna was Robert’s doom, and he was hers.

“Ned, my love, are you all right?”

Ned blinked and turned his head around, gripping his wife’s hand in his as he looked at her with a small smile. “Quite all right, my dear.”

“Are you sure? You haven’t yet touched your meal.” She looked worried, her pale blue eyes shining with cautiousness, for she had rarely seen her husband in a bad mood, and knew to be careful when he was in one.

“I will. I just…” Ned inhaled deeply and closed his eyes for a second. Lyanna’s picture shimmered beneath his lids and he heard an echo of her laughter in his ears. He opened his eyes again and gave his wife a sure smile. “I’m fine. I got lost in memories.”

Cat nodded and smiled a bit, visibly relaxing and tightening her hold on his fingers before letting go, returning to her plate. He looked at her for a second longer as she elegantly cut her waffle into tiny bits. Always so careful, always so patient, always so right.

And his, for a whole eternity that was and the one that would be.

 

“Good morning, Sir.”

“’Morning, Jory.” Ned nodded at his assistant on the way to his office. He could see the polished wooden door just a few steps forward, with the words _Eddard Stark_ neatly engraved onto its surface.

“Mister Stark?” Jory called after him.

Ned slowly turned around, feeling a bit of a frown forming on his face. Jory had never before stopped him on his way to the office. He would always wait a bit before coming forward and knocking, starting with the business.

“I… I am sorry to bother you, but, Sir Baratheon has called only a few minutes ago.” Jory looked nervous. He gripped the papers in his hands tightly and stuttered on his words. “He said it was an emergency, and that I am to call for you, Sir, the very minute. I presumed you would be coming around any minute, too, so I decided not to bother you unless you were late.”  
Ned was never late. Jory knew that. Ned knew that.

But Robert didn’t wake up till after 10 o’clock, not even on work days.

“You should have called me right away.” Ned firmly said. Jory looked baffled.

“But, Sir –“

“You have been placed into my assistance, but not only mine. Your duty lies to Robert Baratheon, too, and his orders are urgent, no matter if he claims them as such or not.”

Jory said: “I’m sorry, Sir.”, but Ned didn’t wait for him to finish the sentence. He walked into his office and shut the door, not wasting a second before reaching for his phone.

“ _Ned_!” Robert’s voice rang through the line. “ _That bloody fool_ …”

“Who are you talking about?”

“ _About Stannis, of course, who else could I be talking about when I state they’re a fool_?”

A lot of people. All the people.

But Ned didn’t say that. He only waited for an explanation.

“ _He found him. He found the bloody kid, and I don’t think he would waste a second before knocking down his door, if it weren’t for my pleading to call on you, too_.”

“The kid? What kid, Robert?”

Robert sighed, and that sigh sounded like the first honest thing Ned had heard from Robert in years.

“ _My son, of course._ ”

 

**GENDRY**

Gendry himself never had much appetite for pancakes, but he knew how much Arya loved them.

So, when he opened his eyes and saw her dark hair spilled over his chest, the first thought in his head was that he had to make pancakes for breakfast.

Thus when the clock ticked out 9 o’clock, he was in the kitchen, finishing the last of the pancakes and setting the table for two persons. He had never been an excellent cook or had a real talent, but he could find his way around the kitchen and make the simples meals quite delicious. And he knew Arya loved his pancakes.

As he put the plate with the pancakes on the table, his mind started ringing with unease. Should he wake her up? Should he wait for her to wake up? How could he wake up? How would she react?

“Someone’s been busy.”

Her voice was sleepy, low, and amused. Like a low purr that made his skin itch, and a flash of her naked skin underneath his fingers flashed in his mind.

He turned around to see her leaning on the doorframe, wearing the Darth Vader T-shirt again. He really loved how she looked in it – he doubted he would ever want it anywhere but on her again.

Gendry also didn’t know what she had underneath the T-shirt, because the shirt came almost to her knees, but he was very willing to explore.

“Good morning, Wolfie.” He smirked.

“Hello, Bull.” She returned the greeting with an easy smile and pushed herself off the doorframe, slowly stepping toward him. “You proved to be quite strong last night.”

Gendry had his hands reaching for her even before she was anywhere close to him. When she finally leaned into him, snaking her hands around his waist and hugging him firmly, he suddenly felt relief he didn’t even realize he needed. He supposed he was afraid it was all a dream.

“And you howled quite expectedly for someone called _Wolfie_.”

He felt her laughter even as she smacked his shoulder and pulled away. She turned away from him even before he could see the smile he knew was on her face. “I _knew_ I smelled pancakes!”

She happily popped down on a chair and he laughed before settling down next to her.

He really didn’t like pancakes, but it was all worth her happiness.

“For m’lady.” He bowed his head and gestured toward the plates.

“Do not called me m’lady!” she screeched and that earned him another smack on the shoulder.

“As m’lady commands.”

This time she only laughed and all he wanted to do was replace the smile with his lips.

 

**NED**

They were all there, Robert, Stannis and Renly.

All that was left of the male Baratheons.

Ned felt like an outsider, but also like the only hope for the yet oblivious black haired rock musician.

“This is where he lives?” Renly exclaimed in shock, with a bit of disgust colouring his voice. “Who knew. Good job, brother.” He offered his older brother, the boy’s father, a glare.

“Shut up, you fool.” Robert muttered darkly, and Ned was suddenly reminded of the younger Robert. The one that was clouded with a serious darkness, sober all the time and as just as possible. He knew Robert was sorry for never being able to track down the boy he knew was his only son **. (A/N – I decided to not include Edric Storm in this story. Sorry if any of you wished for his appearance.)**

Ned knew the boy quite well through his kids. Jon and Gendry had been friends for years – and he knew Arya was spending an awful lot of time with the boy, too.

In a way, he felt protective and guilty for the boy.

 

“Robert, are you sure it’s a good idea for all of us to go in?”

“We’re all family he has left, Stannis, you dumb fool. And Ned might as well be family, too. if things go wrong, I’d rather he was there, than either of your sorry arses.”

Ned exhaled softly. He knew it was a lot, having 4 old man appear on your doorstep, but he also knew that it was currently the best approach. Robert was too big of a fool to handle the situation in the right way, Stannis was there to make it sound serious and business like, Renly was there to break the tension and lessen the sense of the grave situation, and Ned knew there would need to be someone familiar for the boy when he heard the truth.

“Shall we?” Renly sarcastically showed them the poorly built door and gave them a theatrical grin.

Robert grumbled something, but before any of them could answer, Stannis was ringing the doorbell. Luckily, for such a poor building, the bell seemed to still be in function.

For all the sense Ned Stark had, he never could have expected the sight of his daughter opening Robert’s son’s door.

“Oh boy.” Arya muttered, her eyes wide and frightened, locked with her father’s.

“Arya.” Renly laughed. “Wow!” he turned to his brother. “What an unexpected turn of events, isn’t it, Robert?”

Stannis seemed ignorant of the situation, but his eyes flicked to Robert’s figures for just a small second. His eyes flashed with sadness.

When Gendry appeared behind his daughter, Ned guessed he knew why.

Before him stood the picture he had seen so many years ago.

_“Ned.” she gasped. Her hands trembled and she caught the doorframe. “I – what are you doing here?”_

_“I am looking for my friend.” He said with utter disbelief. “Lyanna, what are you doing in his apartment?”_

“Mister Stark.” Gendry’s  eyes widened, but Ned noticed he hadn’t backed away from Arya – if anything, he seemed to be leaning into her.

“Arya, would you –“

“I was just leaving.” She said suddenly. She turned around to face Gendry and he lowered his eyes on her, and Ned noticed the helpless look in them. His daughter gripped the boy’s hand and squeezed it. “I’ll catch you later.”

Gendry, Ned and the Baratheons watched her skip off in silence.

When she finally got out of their sight, Gendry uncertainly looked at the newcomers. “Would you like to come in?”

Once they were settled around the kitchen table, and Gendry was just taking away the last thing on it, Robert sniffed the air suspiciously and said out loud: “Pancakes?”

When the boy nodded, Robert frowned. “I never liked those.”


End file.
